Wanna Know Who Died?

[Stock]

Remembering John Templeton

John Marks Templeton, 95, a billionaire
investor who had a life-long fascination
with science and religion, died in Nassau,
Bahamas on July 8, 2008 of pneumonia.

John Templeton was a wonderful
mentor who both inspired and illuminated
my investment career. He also influenced
me in the realm of time management,
something very important in business. For
Templeton, time was always a thing to be
treated as a gift. To me, this is one of his
greatest legacies in a rush-rush world. Each
client quite rightfully makes claim on a
money manager’s time. When you were
with Templeton, however, you always had
a sense that he had more things to do than
time to do it, but you also felt that when
you were with him, his time was yours.
Templeton was very conscious of respecting
other people’s time, and when he traveled
around the world, to ensure that he
was prompt, he always set his watch 10
minutes fast. We call this “Templeton
time”. He used his time effectively, but his
life was centered on helping others through
understanding of sound money management
principles. Meetings with him always
began at the designated hour and always
ended on schedule. Even in my many telephone
calls to him, I was told exactly how
much time I had.

His desire to use his time effectively
found its logical expression in mutual
funds – a means for “every man” to stake a
claim in the markets as a way to help families
of many income levels to achieve
wealth and security. Later, he realized that
there was a strong place for closed-end
funds as well, especially in the emerging
markets of the world. His top performing
emerging markets fund, the Templeton
Emerging Markets Fund managed by Dr.
Mark Mobius, is the best example, but
there are others with exceptional records.
Mutual funds have a disadvantage in
these volatile markets because, if a shareholder
wants out, the fund’s management
must redeem his shares at net asset value
by the end of the day. Closed-end fund
investors have the advantage of time to
carefully monitor their investments,
choose limit orders and have the protection
of the discount.

John Templeton started his career on
Wall Street in 1937 while in his early 20s
and went on to create the Templeton family
of mutual funds, which grew so well that
he could commit much of his fortune to
scientific and religious causes. His philanthropies
included the $1 million Templeton
Prize for Progress in Religion established
in 1972, which annually recognizes one
individual for “progress toward research or
discoveries about spiritual realities”. He
told me once that he placed the emphasis
on “progress”.

During a career that included directorships
at banks, businesses and insurance
companies as well as educating investors,
Templeton also maintained a long association
with the Presbyterian Church. Raised
with a sense of entrepreneurship, he was
the son of an enterprising country lawyer
and a religious mother. After Yale and
establishing his investment business in
New York, he became a trustee of
Princeton’s Theological Seminary for 42
years and served as its chair for 12 years.
People connected with this seminary have
told me that the endowment he helped raise
has made the seminary one of the
wealthiest in the U.S.

Sir John Templeton, a naturalized
British subject, was knighted by Queen
Elizabeth in 1987 for his philanthropic
work through the John Templeton
Foundation. Founded in 1972, the
Foundation worked on the “Big Questions”
of science, religion and human purpose.
Based outside Philadelphia and now
managed by his son, John (“Jack”)
Templeton, a retired pediatric surgeon, the
Foundation supports academic research in
fields such as theoretical physics, cosmology,
evolutionary biology, cognitive
science and social sciences as they relate to
love, forgiveness, creativity, purpose and
the nature of religious belief. With an
endowment of about $1.5 billion, some
$70 million is given away annually.

“How little we know, how eager to
learn” is its motto. Templeton found that
the more he gave away, the more he had.
He told me once that he double-tithed
(20%) to his church.

John Templeton also established
Templeton College at Oxford in 1983
because he wanted to advance management
studies, revitalize the British
economy and, most of all, to help people
around the world escape from poverty,
famine and disease.

As a pioneer in both financial investment
and philanthropy, Sir John Templeton
spent a lifetime educating investors and
encouraging open-mindedness. He wrote:
“If I hadn’t sought new paths, I would have
been unable to attain so many goals.”
Whenever you were with this remarkable
man, you felt like you were the most
important person in the world to him. He
had, indeed, a rare amount of humility in a
world of greed.

I first met John Templeton in New
York, sitting quietly in his room at the
University Club, with the lights off, probably
at prayer. When he saw me, he asked if
I knew the “Parable of the Talents”. When
he explained to me that God has given to
each of us a particular talent, he immediately
made me feel good about my life and
where it was going. My newsletter was
struggling at the time, but within a decade
I purchased an investment advisory firm in
California and expanded my life’s work in
a new direction which has since flourished
as I became an investment advisor specializing
in closed-end funds.

Afterwards, I kept up with Sir John by
telephone and later by visits. I saw him in
Richmond once, when he came up from
Nassau to hear his son Jack give a lecture
at the Medical College of Virginia on
“conjoined twins” and their separation by
surgery.

I also visited Sir John several times at
his home and office at Lyford Cay, Nassau
to interview him for The Scott Letter and to
learn more about his philanthropic activities.
My last visit was in 2001, accompanied
by my wife and 87-year-old mother.
Sir John, then a widower, had lost his first
wife, Judith, the mother of his three children,
in a motorbike accident in Bermuda.
His second wife, Irene, had died in the late
1990s in Florida. Although he declined my
mother’s invitation to dinner, we later saw
him on the beach. I treasure the photo of
them together, arm in arm.

On a more personal note, prior to the
last time I traveled to London in 1995, I
telephoned Sir John to ask who I could see
at the Anglican Diocese. He first suggested
that I go to Lambeth Palace, the official
residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury.
I doubted I could see the Archbishop as
easily as Sir John could, so he gave me the
name of the Dean of Westminster Abby,
whom I contacted. The Dean led me on a
private tour of this 5th century abby to see
the “Templeton Windows” for which Sir
John had raised the money to restore, in
typical Templeton fashion.

Templeton’s investment principles
influenced me and millions of other
investors. One investment rule that he
established was to “buy at the time of
maximum pessimism”, such as what we
are witnessing now. Due to his strong interest
in educating investors, he developed
rules and principles, publishing them in his
many books, now available from
Templeton Foundation Press.

Templeton provided advice on how to
invest worldwide when Americans rarely
considered foreign investing. When he
wanted to devote more time to his
Foundation, he sold his Templeton Funds
to the Franklin Group of Funds in 1992 for
a reported $913 million. He kept active in
his work until about three years ago and
died quietly, ready for the next life. He
left a legacy that will be long remembered.

For more information about this remarkable man,
see the biography, Global Investing: The
Templeton Way as told to Norman
Berryessa and Eric Kirzner, and his 1981
book, The Humble Approach: Scientists
Discover God. In his book, Templeton
asks, “Can science expand our understanding
of the Divine?” This and other books
can be found at http://www.templeton
foundation.org.

Memorial services for Sir John
Templeton will be held at Princeton
University Chapel on November 21, 2008
at 2 p.m.

http://www.cefadvisors.com/ScottLetter/2008/2008-07-08.pdf