BEN, Franklin Resources, Inc.
Franklin Resources, Inc. is a holding company with subsidiaries operating under our Franklin Templeton and/or subsidiary brand names.
Read top to bottom, the owner's questions in the order an owner asks them: what the business is, whether the record holds, whether it survives and is any good, and what you would be paying. New to the questions? Start with the Method.
The business in brief
read the 10-K →What this business is and what moves its needle, read from the numbers in its filings. The quantitative detail is in the sections below; the verdict is left to you.
- What it is
- Revenue is led by Investment management fees (80%) and Sales and distribution fees (17%), with 2 more lines behind.
- What moves the needle
- Net interest margin, loan losses, and book value. A lender is read on the quality of its balance sheet, not on an earnings multiple.
- Is it a good business?
- Return on equity has sat below the cost of equity (median 8%, above 12% in only 4 of 10 years). The cycle and the loan book decide this one; weigh the recession years in the record, not the average, and read the 10-K.
Every line here is arithmetic from the company's own filings, not a model's opinion, and each figure appears in full in the sections below.
Where the money comes from
read the 10-K →Investment management fees is 80% of revenue, so this is largely a single-line business.
- Investment management fees80%$7.0B
- Sales and distribution fees17%$1.5B
- Shareholder Service3%$265M
- Other1%$50M
From the segment footnote of the company's own 10-K. Shares are of total revenue; the profit bar shows each segment's share of segment operating profit, before unallocated corporate costs.
The record, 2016–2025
realized figures from each filing, no estimates| 2016’16 | 2017’17 | 2018’18 | 2019’19 | 2020’20 | 2021’21 | 2022’22 | 2023’23 | 2024’24 | 2025’25 | TTMTTMMar 2026 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| RevenueRevenue | $6.6B | $6.4B | $6.2B | $5.7B | $5.6B | $8.4B | $8.3B | $7.8B | $8.5B | $8.8B | $9.0B |
| Net incomeNet inc. | $1.7B | $1.7B | $764M | $1.2B | $799M | $1.8B | $1.3B | $883M | $465M | $525M | $734M |
| EPS (diluted)EPS | $2.96 | $3.03 | $1.42 | $2.37 | $1.62 | $3.73 | $2.64 | $1.80 | $0.91 | $1.01 | $1.42 |
| Return on equityROE | 14% | 13% | 8% | 12% | 8% | 16% | 11% | 7% | 4% | 4% | 6% |
| Return on tangible equityROTCE | 17% | 16% | 9% | 17% | 114% | 89% | 210% | 87% | 31% | 31% | 42% |
| DepositsDeposits | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | $400K |
| Book value / shareBVPS | $20.45 | $22.57 | $18.40 | $19.64 | $20.54 | $22.88 | $23.45 | $24.28 | $24.51 | $23.34 | $23.39 |
| Tangible book / shareTBVPS | $17.57 | $19.54 | $15.05 | $13.71 | $1.42 | $4.19 | $1.25 | $2.06 | $2.93 | $3.30 | $3.35 |
| Dividends / shareDiv/sh | $0.70 | $0.79 | $3.93 | $1.03 | $1.08 | $1.14 | $1.19 | $1.24 | $1.29 | $1.32 | — |
Owner’s Scorecard
Is it a good business?
- Below the cost of equityNet income $525M ÷ equity $12.1B
The bank's north star, what it earns on shareholders' capital. Cost of equity is roughly 10%, so a return durably above that builds value and below it destroys it. One year is noisy; the durability across a full credit cycle is what counts.
- ExceptionalNet income ÷ (equity − goodwill $6.2B − intangibles $4.2B)
The cleaner return, stripping out the goodwill paid for past acquisitions. This is the number a buyer of the whole bank actually earns on the hard capital.
- Not enough data
Noninterest expense or revenue missing.
Is it sound?
- Capital (equity / assets) 37.3%Well capitalizedEquity $12.1B ÷ assets $32.4B
A plain-English leverage read: how much of the balance sheet is the owners' own money. This is a rough proxy; the regulatory figure is the CET1 ratio, which is risk-weighted and reported in the filing. The point is the same, how much loss the bank can absorb before depositors are at risk.
- Leans on wholesale fundingDeposits $400K ÷ assets $32.4B
Low-cost, sticky deposits are a bank's real moat, the cheap raw material it lends out at a spread. A bank funded mostly by deposits earns more durably than one that rents its money in the wholesale market.
- Credit cost —Not enough data
Provision or net interest income missing.
Solvent is not the same as cheap; growing is not the same as good. These are vital signs, not a verdict, the judgment is yours, and the filing is one click away.
Management & pay
Two questions Buffett actually asks about pay: is stock compensation, a real expense, whatever the income statement pretends, quietly large, and is the top wildly out of line with the floor. He's no populist about it; he just wants pay that's rational and earned, and comp committees that aren't lapdogs.
- Stock-based compensation$215M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 2% of revenue, equal to 36% of operating profit. Buffett's oldest accounting fight: this is compensation, compensation is an expense, real whether or not the headline earnings admit it. And note the trap, the cash-flow statement adds SBC back, so the operating cash, and the owner earnings drawn from it, are flattered by exactly this amount; counted as the cost it is, what an owner keeps is lower.
What the price implies
price / tangible bookA bank is worth a multiple of its tangible book value, and the multiple it deserves is set by the return it earns on that book. Type today’s price; we show what you would be paying against what Franklin Resources, Inc.’s record justifies. Nothing is stored; the number stays in your browser.
Enter a price above to run it.
The justified multiple is (return on tangible equity − growth) ÷ (cost of equity − growth). A bank earning exactly its cost of equity is worth about one times tangible book; every point of durable excess return above that is worth paying up for. Raise the cost of equity and the justified multiple falls: that is interest-rate gravity on a bank.
Tangible book $1.7B on 518M shares, a 31% normalized return on it. This is a lens, not a target. It assumes the bank keeps earning that return; a credit cycle, a rate shock or a bad acquisition changes it, which is what the record and the 10-K are for.
What the filing emphasizes, FY2025
read the 10-K →Each year a 10-K must name what could go wrong, in the company's own words. Here are the ones Graham and Buffett would stop on, each set against the figure from the same filings that bears on it, anchored to a period you can find in the record above. We point; the judgment is yours.
- Pricing power & competitionBusiness
Whether the company sets its price or takes it. Durable pricing power is the surest mark of a moat; price competition is the surest mark there isn't one.
“The financial services industry is a highly competitive global environment.”
From the recordOperating margin9.3% now (TTM), off a 35.7% peak (FY2016) - Concentrated dependenceMD&A
What the whole business leans on, a product, a platform, a partner. Concentration cuts both ways, and the filing is where management has to admit it.
“The level of our revenues also depends on the fees charged for our services, which are based on contracts with our funds and customers, fund sales, and the number of shareholder transactions and accounts.”
From the recordOwner-earnings margin at stake (TTM)9% - Debt terms & refinancingMD&A
The fine print behind the debt. Covenants and near-term maturities decide who is really in control when a year goes badly.
“The $400.0 million 2.850% senior notes due March 2025 were repaid on March 31, 2025 using existing cash and borrowings from our revolving credit facility.”
From the recordBalance sheet (TTM)+$3.2B net cash · interest covered 6.4× - Litigation & contingenciesRisk Factors
Claims an owner inherits. Most disclosure is boilerplate; this fires only on an actual matter, a named suit, a settlement, a contingency, a number.
“Conversely, while we take efforts to avoid infringement of the intellectual property of third parties, if we are deemed to infringe on a third party's intellectual property rights it could expose us to litigation risks, license fees, liability and reputational harm.”
A judgment, not a number, weigh it against the filing yourself. - Regulation & policyBusiness
Rules that can rewrite the economics, tariffs, antitrust, data, export controls.
“Congress is considering legislation that would allocate primary oversight of most other digital asset activities between the SEC and CFTC.”
A judgment, not a number, weigh it against the filing yourself.
What changed, FY2025 vs FY2024
read the 10-K →Most of a 10-K is boilerplate carried over verbatim; the signal is in what's new. These lines appear this year and weren't there last, figure updates filtered out, so only the language shift remains.
- “We performed a quantitative test for the indefinite-lived intangible asset related to certain contracts managed by Western Asset and recognized a $200.0 million impairment, primarily due to a decline in expected future growth rates and profit margins in the related AUM based on a shift to lower fee …”
- “During fiscal year 2025, we identified indicators that the fair value of certain indefinite-lived intangible assets were below their carrying value related to acquired mutual fund investment management contracts triggered by decreased AUM in related products and recognized an impairment of $24.4 mil…”
- “Despite periods of volatility driven by uncertainty regarding U.S. economic and trade policies, during the fiscal year ended September 30, 2025 ("fiscal year 2025"), U.S. and global equity markets provided positive returns, due in part to strong corporate earnings and easing of monetary policy.”
- “The rate decrease was primarily due to higher average AUM in lower-fee equity products and catch-up fees recognized in the prior year at the closing of fundraising rounds in a secondary private equity fund, partially offset by the impact of outflows in lower-fee products at WAM.”
- “Certain key regulatory reforms and proposals in the U.S. and other jurisdictions that may impact or relate to our business, and may cause us to incur additional obligations, include regulatory matters related to antitrust rules and disclosure, cybersecurity disclosure, sustainability, privacy and da…”
Classic text analysis over the filing itself, no model wrote a word of this, and every quote is the company's own.
Peers, Asset management
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| AMPAmeriprise Financial Inc | $18.9B | 54% | 75% | — | — |
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