Two Templeton buys for global quality

Article Excerpt

TEMPLETON GROWTH FUND $8.42 (CWA Rating: Conservative) (Franklin Templeton Management Limited, 1 Adelaide Street East, Suite 2101, Toronto, ON. M5C 3B8. 1-800-387-0830; Web site: www.templeton.ca. Buy or sell through brokers) follows the approach that paid off so well for so long under its founder and long-time manager, John Templeton. His successors aim to look for bargains, avoid fads and pay close attention to a company’s fundamentals. Templeton Growth Fund holds 40.8% of its assets in the U.S., 14.8% in the U.K., 5.0% in Germany, 4.8% in France, 4.7% in Switzerland, 4.4% in Spain, 4.4% in Singapore, 3.6% in the Netherlands, 3.0% in Japan and 2.8% in South Korea. The $2.2-billion fund’s top holdings include Oracle (U.S. software), Telefonica SA (Spanish telecommunications), Microsoft Corp. (U.S. software), United Parcel Service (U.S. package delivery), Vodafone Group (U.K. wireless), Comcast (U.S. cable TV, Internet and telephone), Singapore Telecommunications, Amgen (U.S. biotechnology), Siemens AG (German electronics and electrical engineering) and Sanofi-Aventis (Swiss pharmaceuticals). The fund lost 29.9% in…