WHEN the second world war broke out, Sir John Templeton, one of the founding fathers of Franklin Templeton, a big asset manager, made a shrewd bet. Convinced that the best time to invest was “the point of maximum pessimism”, he bought stakes in every NYSE-listed company whose shares were selling at a dollar or less, including 34 that were in bankruptcy. In 1945, when the war finally ended, he sold them for a 400% profit.Michael Hasenstab (pictured), who manages $190 billion of government debt for Franklin Templeton, is Templeton’s philosophical heir. Soft-spoken, measured and publicity-shy, Mr Hasenstab is the antithesis of “bond king” Bill Gross, but with an equally impressive record. The main fund he manages has returned 8% a year for the past decade, double the average for funds that invest in sovereign bonds.Big, contrarian bets have become Mr Hasenstab’s trademark. Since 2010, he has been investing enthusiastically in Ukrainian government debt, and now owns $8.8 billion of the country’s $16 billion of international bonds. In April, as eastern Ukraine descended into war, Mr Hasenstab appeared in a promotional video from Kiev, touting the great potential of...
from The Economist: Finance and economics http://ift.tt/1yfCCz3
No comments:
Post a Comment