Franklin Templeton Investments today introduced some new investment options for Canadians interested in global equity or income opportunities for their portfolios. The three new funds, Mutual Discovery Fund, Franklin AGE High Income Fund and Franklin Strategic Income Fund are all foreign investments while the new Diversified Income Portfolio, a collection of income bearing funds, is fully eligible as Canadian content for RSP purposes.

Mutual Discovery Fund uses a deep value investment style to find opportunities anywhere in the world, in companies of any size. In addition to investing in undervalued stocks, this go-anywhere fund works to uncover hidden value in distressed securities by investing in companies facing issues such as bankruptcy or restructuring.

As well, the fund searches for companies targeted for mergers, acquisitions and consolidations in a hope to take advantage of any pricing differences that arise. The deep value investment style is the hallmark of the funds’ manager, Franklin Mutual Advisers LLC, of Short Hills, N.J.

“Canadians will be familiar with the management team and the deep value investment style. This team is responsible for the Mutual Beacon Fund, winner of the Best U.S. Equity Fund category at the Canadian Investment Awards for the past two years,” said Don Reed, president and CEO of Franklin Templeton Investments. “The new Mutual Discovery Fund is modeled after a similar fund that has been available to U.S. investors since 1992.”

The Franklin AGE High Income Fund invests in mainly high yield bonds issued from corporations and governments located anywhere in the world. Modeled after a similar fund in the U.S., the Franklin AGE High Income Fund aims to provide investors with higher monthly income distributions combined with longer-term capital appreciation.

“The key to the success of this fund is research. The Franklin high yield analysts in San Mateo, California use both qualitative and quantitative analysis to evaluate the fixed income and equity markets from the bottom up to find the best opportunities in the global high yield sector,” said Reed.

Reed said the growing demand for investment products that are designed to provide regular monthly distributions and the opportunity for capital appreciation has led Franklin Templeton to bundle together a group of income based funds to create the new Franklin Templeton Diversified Income Portfolio.

The income portfolio, part of the fund company’s Quotential Program, consists of a mix of Bissett Bond, Bissett Income and Bissett Dividend Income funds as well as the Templeton Global Bond Fund and the new Franklin AGE High Income Fund and Franklin Strategic Income Fund.

“The advantage of this portfolio is that it is fully diversified by income source; geographic region; and investment styles. This allows the portfolio to mitigate risk while still providing for regular income and potential growth. ” said Reed.

The portfolio is also fully RSP eligible as Canadian content for investors looking to add income to their retirement plans.

Rounding out Franklin Templeton Investments’ new offerings is the Franklin Strategic Income Fund. This global fund invests among six investment classes: high yield and investment grade corporate bonds and preferred stocks; developed country government and agency bonds; emerging market government and agency bonds; mortgage securities and other asset-backed securities and convertible securities. The fund aims to provide income and long-term capital appreciation by shifting its investments among the six asset classes.

“We feel that the Strategic Income Fund, combined with our other new offerings will provide Canadians with some strong, unique and smart options for their portfolio in 2003,” concluded Reed.

The Mutual Discovery Fund is also available in RSP and Tax Class versions.