Franklin Resources

Observed margins are inherently constrained by fee compression in public‑market strategies. Franklin is offsetting this with mix shift to alternatives (higher base fees and performance fee potential), retirement/DC plans, and platform breadth in ETFs/SMAs/custom indexing.

ETFs have grown for 15 straight quarters and reached about $44 billion AUM in the June quarter, while Canvas custom indexing exceeded $13 billion. Digital‑asset ETFs (Bitcoin EZBC; Ethereum EZET) add optionality but carry low fees initially. Overall, realized pricing power is moderate today, with latent upside from alternatives and DC.