Franklin's (BEN) January AUM Down on Negative Market Returns

Franklin Resources BEN has announced preliminary assets under management (AUM) by its subsidiaries of $688 billion for January 2020. Results display a 1.5% decrease from the $698.3 billion recorded as of Dec 31, 2019. Net outflows and negative market returns were the impacting factors. However, the reported figure inched up 1.4% year on year.

Month-end total equity assets came in at $273.4 billion, down 2.5% from the previous month and 2.8% year over year. Of the total equity assets, around 57% were from international sources, while the remaining 43% came in from the United States.

Total fixed income assets were $269.8 billion, slightly down from December 2019 but up 5.3% from the prior year. Overall, tax-free assets accounted for only 25% of the fixed-income assets, while the remaining 75% was taxable.

Franklin recorded $134.3 billion in hybrid assets, down 1.6% from the $136.5 billion witnessed in the previous month but up 2.4% from the $134.3 billion reported in January 2019.

Cash management funds came in at $10.5 billion, up from the prior-month figure of $10.4 billion and $9.7 billion recorded in the previous year.

Though regulatory restrictions and sluggish economic recovery might mar AUM growth, and escalate costs, the company’s global footprint is an exceptionally favorable strategic point as its AUM is well diversified.

Currently, Franklin carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). Shares of the company have lost around 8.5% in the last three months as against 10.7% growth registered by the industry. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Among other asset managers, Invesco Ltd. IVZ, T. Rowe Price Group, Inc. TROW and Legg Mason Inc. LM are expected to release preliminary AUM results for January, later this week.

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