Franklin Resources a global investment management organization operating as Franklin Templeton Investments, has entered into an agreement to acquire Benefit Street Partners.
The acquisition will bolster Franklin Templeton’s alternative offerings and expand its robust fixed-income capabilities to include an array of alternative credit strategies, at a time when investors are increasingly allocating capital to less-liquid and higher-yielding credit opportunities.
BSP offers a broad spectrum of investment capabilities to its investors, covering corporate performing and distressed private credit, structured credit, and commercial real estate credit. The alternative credit asset class is seeing strong demand in a rising-rate environment, with BSP generally focusing on high-quality, primarily senior-secured, floating-rate debt. BSP’s senior management team has worked together for over two decades, at BSP and at another organization, and is supported by a deep bench of strategy leaders, portfolio managers and investment professionals with significant experience building institutional-quality businesses that have delivered strong results through multiple market cycles.
This transaction is subject to customary closing conditions, and Franklin Templeton anticipates the transaction will close in the firm’s second quarter of fiscal 2019. Following the acquisition, Franklin Templeton’s alternative offerings will represent more than $40 billion in assets under management.
