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Sir
John Templeton
Sir John
Templeton was an investor and mutual fund pioneer who dedicated much
of his fortune to religion and science. Templeton was born in the
town of Winchester, Tennessee. He attended Yale University, pledged
the Zeta Psi Fraternity and was selected for membership in the Elihu
society. He graduated with a degree in economics in 1934 as a top
scholar in his class.
He was a
Rhodes Scholar to Balliol College, University of Oxford where he
first met his life-long friend, Michelangelo Antonioni the Italian
film director. He graduated with a M.A. degree in law. He was a
Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) charter-holder. He received AIMR's
first award for professional excellence in 1991.
Templeton
married Judith Folk in 1937 and the couple had three children: John,
Jr, Anne and Christopher. Judith died in February 1951. He then
married Irene Reynolds Butler in 1958; she died in 1993.
How he was inspired?
He was a lifelong member of the Presbyterian Church. He was a
trustee on the board of Princeton Theological Seminary, the largest
Presbyterian seminary, for 42 years and served as its chair for 12
years.
Templeton became a billionaire by pioneering the use of globally
diversified mutual funds. His Templeton Growth, Ltd. (investment
fund), established in 1954, was among the first who invested in
Japan in the middle of the 1960s. He is noted for buying 100 shares
of each company trading for less than $1 a share in 1939 and making
many times the money back in a 4 year period. In 2006 he was listed
in a 7-way tie for 129th place on the Sunday Times Rich List. He
rejected technical analysis for stock trading, preferring instead to
use fundamental analysis. Money magazine in 1999 called him
"arguably the greatest global stock picker of the century”. He
renounced his U.S. citizenship in 1968, thus avoiding U.S. income
taxes. He had dual naturalized Bahamian and British citizenship and
lived in the Bahamas.
Philanthropy at the heart?
As a philanthropist, Templeton established
the John Templeton Foundation;
the Templeton Prize for Progress Toward Research or Discoveries
about Spiritual Realities in 1972.
In 1984 he endowed the Oxford Centre for Management Studies as a
full college, Templeton College, of the University of Oxford, having
as a focus business and management studies. It is now closely
associated with the Saïd Business School of the University. In 2007,
Templeton College sold its executive education program to Saïd
Business School. In October 2008, Templeton College will merge with
Green College to form Green Templeton College. This is one of the
exceptional mergers in recent history of the University of Oxford.
He was created a Knight Bachelor in 1987 for his philanthropic
efforts.
Templeton was inducted into the Junior Achievement U.S. Business
Hall of Fame in 1996.
Become a Power Giver?
In 2007, Templeton was named one of Time magazine's 100 Most
Influential People (Time 100) under the category of "Power Givers."
Templeton was given this honor for his "pursuit of spiritual
understanding, often through scientific research" through his
establishment of the John Templeton Foundation.
Avoiding the herd
Templeton attributed much of his success to his ability to maintain
an elevated mood, avoid anxiety and stay disciplined. Uninterested
in consumerism, he drove his own car, never flew first class and
lived year-round in his peaceful ocean-side home in the Bahamas.
Templeton became known for his "avoiding the herd" and "buy when
there's blood in the streets" philosophy.
He also was known for taking profits when values and expectations
were high.
Spirituality and the Templeton Foundation
As a member of the Presbyterian Church, Templeton was dedicated to
his faith. However, Templeton remained open to the benefits and
values of other faiths. Commenting on his commitment to what he
called spiritual progress, “But why shouldn't I try to learn more?
Why shouldn't I go to Hindu services? Why shouldn't I go to Muslim
services? If you are not egotistical, you will welcome the
opportunity to learn more. Similarly, one of the major goals of
the Templeton Foundation is to proliferate the monetary support of
spiritual discoveries. The Templeton Foundation encourages research
into "big questions" by awarding philanthropic aide to institutions
and people who pursue the answers to such questions through
"explorations into the laws of nature and the universe to questions
on the nature of love, gratitude, forgiveness, and creativity."
Templeton asserted that the purpose of the Templeton Foundation is as
follows:
"We are trying to persuade people that no human has yet grasped 1% of
what can be known about spiritual realities. So we are encouraging
people to start using the same methods of science that have been so
productive in other areas, in order to discover spiritual realities." Sir John Templeton, Interview with
Financial Intelligence Report.
Free Competition?
Sir John
M. Templeton, a student of benefits from free competition and
disciplined work habits, is not the first wealthy investor to
increase his giving to religion-related causes late in life.
However, his progressive ideas on finance and faith made him a
distinctive figure in both fields, perhaps something of an
iconoclast. Not that the soft-spoken Southerner worries about that.
"Rarely does a conservative become a hero of history," Templeton
wrote in The Humble Approach, one of a dozen books he has authored
or edited. Rather, it is the far-reaching thinker who breaks out of
the traditional mold . . . "one who, according to the accepted
customs of his time, might be branded a heretic."
Taking a less-traveled route in investing, Templeton sold advice on
how to invest worldwide when Americans rarely considered foreign
investment.
Buy low, sell high
Standard stock-buying advice is "buy low, sell high." But Templeton
took the strategy to an extreme---picking nations, industries and
companies hitting rock-bottom "points of maximum pessimism," as he
put it. When war began in Europe in 1939, he borrowed money to buy
100 shares in each of 104 companies selling at $1 a share or less,
including 34 companies that were in bankruptcy. Only four turned out
to be worthless, and he turned large profits on the others after
holding each for an average four years.
Templeton Growth Fund
Templeton launched his flagship fund, Templeton Growth, Ltd. in
1954. Each $100,000 invested then with distribution reinvested grew
to total $55 million in 1999.
Although he has been a Presbyterian elder active in his denomination
and on the boards of Princeton Theological Seminary and the American
Bible Society, he espouses a "humble approach" to theology.
Declaring that relatively little is known about God through
scripture and present-day theology, Templeton once predicted that
"scientific revelations may be a goldmine for revitalizing religion
in the 21st Century."
The John Templeton
Foundation
The John Templeton Foundation donates to many entrepreneurs, trying
various methods for over 100 fold more spiritual information,
especially through science research to supplement the wonderful
ancient scriptures of all religions. For instance, the ambitious
Forgiveness Project launched in 1999 sought to fund more than $ 10
million in research investigating scientific bases for what
religious traditions have instinctively thought about the salutary
effect of forgiveness on offenders and victims alike.
Birth and background that
shaped a financial genius
John M. Templeton was born Nov. 29, 1912, in the small town of
Winchester, Tennessee. A dozen
years later in nearby Dayton, Tennessee, the famous Scopes "Monkey
Trial" would unfold in a battle of the scientific establishment
proposing the evolution theory by natural selection against a
traditional Christian views of Creation as held by the townsfolk. Templeton and his foundation work
on the premise that scientific principles of evolution and the idea
of God as Creator are compatible.
Rhodes Scholar
Forced to live thriftily by supporting himself while studying at
Yale University during the Depression, Templeton graduated in 1934
as a top scholar in his class. He was named a Rhodes Scholar to
Balloil College at Oxford from which he graduated with a M.A. degree
in law.
He married the former Judith Folk in 1937 and the couple had three
children---John, Anne and Christopher. She died in February, 1951.
He married Irene Reynolds Butler seven years later on New Year's
Eve. She passed away in 1993 after 35 years of marriage.
A wide ranging career
During a career that included directorships on banks, businesses and
insurance companies, Templeton maintains a long association with the
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). He was a trustee on the board of
Princeton Theological Seminary, the largest Presbyterian seminary,
for 42 years and served as its chair for 12 years. He also lent his
business acumen to the Presbyterians' ministerial pension fund for
more than three decades until 1993.
Templeton was known for starting mutual funds' annual meetings with
a prayer. He explained that the devotional words were not pleas for
financial gain in the mundane world, but rather meditations to calm
and clear the minds of managers and stockholders.
Competitive Business
Templeton has told interviewers that "competitive business," in his
view, matched in many ways the compassionate aims of religious
bodies. "For one thing, it enriches the poor more than any other
system humanity ever has had," he told Insight magazine.
"Competitive business has reduced costs, has increased variety, has
improved quality." And if a business is not ethical, he added, "it
will fail, perhaps not right away, but eventually."
A new spiritual paradigm
Typical of Templeton's wide-lens view of spirituality and ethics,
the dedicated Presbyterian admits to additional influence from the
New Thought movements of Christian Science, Unity and Religious
Science. Those metaphysical churches espouse a non-literal view of
heaven and hell, and suggest a shared divinity between God and
humanity. "We realize that our own divinity arises from something
more than merely being 'God's children' or being 'made in his
image,'" Templeton wrote.
Sir John does not claim credentials as a theologian as much as
someone with enough money to stir new research pursuing further
"knowledge and love of God."
The annual Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion grew out of the
philanthropist's belief that honors equivalent to Nobel Prizes
should be bestowed on living innovators in religious action and
thought. Mother Teresa of Calcutta received the first prize in 1973.
Other winners include evangelist Billy Graham, author Aleksandr
Solzhenitsyn and theoretical physicist Paul Davies, one of several
scientists so honored. Hindus, Jews, Buddhists and Muslims have been
on the panel of judges and have been recipients.
Multi-faith Investing
The multi-faith framework of the prize calls for "a clearer
acceptance of the diversity of gifts within the major religions of
the world," Templeton said in 1972 while inaugurating plans for the
awards. "We are indebted to our forefathers who recorded in books
their spiritual discoveries and revelations," he said, "Alive today
are other persons to whom God is revealing further holy truths."
One of Templeton's most recent books, Wisdom from World Religions,
assembles spiritual principles from sacred writings and from the
teachings of Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Hinduism, Islam,
Jainism, Judaism, Sikhism, Taoism, Zen and Zoroastrianism. Examples
of the wisdom found in this rich resource reflect what Templeton
says: "An attitude of gratitude creates blessings, Help yourself by
helping others; You have the most powerful weapons on earth-love and
prayer."
Death
On July 8, 2008, Templeton died at Doctors Hospital in Nassau,
Bahamas of pneumonia at 12:20 local time. He was 95. |
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