Sir John Templeton
Sir John Templeton began his investing career in 1937, eventually launching a managed fund called the ‘Growth Fund’ in 1954. The Growth Fund became the best performing managed fund in the United States over the subsequent two decades.
Despite the name of his fund, Templeton was really one of the first value investors. He loved negative sentiment and delighted in buying shares during market turmoil. His approach was to buy quality companies, but which had reasonable growth prospects, when everyone else was negative about them.
He was also one of the earliest international investors, casting his net globally for undervalued companies in markets that few others dared to enter. He needed to, because few companies met his strict criteria. Templeton also preached diversification, and would hold his stocks for four to six years on average. He was quite prepared to sell them when they were no longer undervalued if there was something tastier on the market menu. Templeton was therefore the quintessential bargain hunter, searching high and low for cheap but high quality merchandise.
