Franklin Resources Inc has the ticker symbol (BEN) and is a large cap member of the financial services sector and is an asset management firm. This is my second report on Franklin Resources Inc for this Vista folio. I previously discussed BEN on November 2, 2020.

Franklin Resources provides investment services for individual and institutional investors. 

At the end of March 2021, Franklin had $1.499 trillion in managed assets, composed primarily of equity (33%), fixed-income (45%), multi-asset/balanced (9%) funds, alternatives (9%) and money market funds. Distribution tends to be weighted more toward retail investors (52% of AUM), as opposed to institutional (46%) and high-net-worth (2%) clients. 

Franklin is also one of the more global firms of the U.S.-based asset managers we cover, with more than 35% of its AUM invested in global/international strategies and close to 25% of managed assets sourced from clients domiciled outside the United States.

Franklin Resources, Inc. was founded in 1947 and is based in San Mateo, California with an additional office in Hyderabad, India.

Three key data points gauge dividend equities or funds like Franklin Resources Inc (BEN):

(1) Price

(2) Dividends

(3) Returns

Those three basic keys best tell whether a company has made, is making, and will make money. 

BEN Price

Franklin's price per share closed at $30.00 Friday. One year ago its price was $18.33.  Thus, price per share has grown over 63.6% since  recovering from last-year's COVID market slump. 

Should Franklin Resources Inc stock trade in the range of $20.00 to $40.00 this year, its recent $30.00 price might rise by $2.00 to reach $32.00 by May 3, 2022. My estimate is $2.53 higher than the median of fifteen estimates from analysts tracking BEN.

BEN Dividends

Franklin's most recent quarterly dividend of $0.28 was paid April 15th, and equates to $1.12 annually yielding 3.73% at Friday's $30.00 closing price. BEN has paid annually increasing quarterly dividends for 41 years. 

BEN Returns

Adding the $1.12 annual Franklin forward looking dividend to my $2.00 price upside estimate shows a $3.12 potential gross gain, per share, to be reduced by any costs to trade the shares.

If we put little under $1,000.00 today in Franklin Resources Inc at $30.00 per share, we'd buy 33 shares.

A $10 broker fee (if charged) would be paid half at purchase and half at sale and might cost us about $0.30 per share.

Subtract that maybe $0.30 brokerage cost from my estimated $3.12 gross gain per share results in a net gain of $2.82 X 33 shares = $93.06 for a 9.31% net gain on a $990.00 investment.

Thus, Franklin Resources Inc shows a possible 9.31% net gain including a 3.73% forward looking dividend yield. 

Over the next year at this time a $1000 investment in BEN could generate $37.30 in cash dividends. And a single share bought at yesterday's closing price was $30.00! So, if BEN is your kind of financial asset management investment, BEN is showing share price less than expected annual dividend income from $1,000 invested. This suggests now may be a good time to add Franklin Resources Inc (BEN) to your holdings.   

All of the estimates above are speculation based on the past history of Franklin Resources Inc (BEN).  Only time and money invested in this stock will determine its worth.