Franklin Templeton has a long and storied history as a manager in public markets, but at the 2026 WP awards, the firm took home the award for Private Asset Investment Provider of the Year. Dennis Tew, head of sales and business strategy at Franklin Templeton Canada, joins WPTV to explain how and why his firm has placed such a focus on private asset strategies.
00:00 If you know what it looks like to try and use the evidence in a trial and it's not all theoretical, you can speak with
00:07 authority at mediation, you can speak with authority at a pre-trial and that really makes a difference for client outcomes.
00:16 Hello and welcome to this special episode of WPTV. My name is David Katai, senior editor at Wealth Professional. In the wake of our 2026 Wealth Professional
00:25 Awards, WP is highlighting a few of our award winners, showcasing the insights and approaches that earned them their trophies. Today, we're lucky to be
00:33 joined by Dennis Tew, head of sales and business strategy at Franklin Templeton Canada. His firm was named private asset investment provider of the year at the
00:41 award show earlier in June. Dennis, welcome to WPTV. David, happy to be here.
00:48 Straightforward question right off the bat, Dennis. Why do you think you won this award? Well, I'm I'm hoping it's beyond just product. Um, what we wanted
00:56 to do uh with our roll out of private assets in Canada is being way more than just product. We really wanted to uh hit
01:04 the market with education, thought leadership, really help advisers uh understand how private market funds can
01:11 be part of their practice. So ultimately I think we really achieve some good advisor engagement through our education programs, digital campaigns, podcast and
01:21 other uh tools that help drive really education in the private market space.
01:26 You are a player across a number of different asset types. Franklin Templeton obviously has strategies across fixed income, equities, global equities, all over the place.
01:35 How have you rolled out and you you've spoken to this to some degree, but how did you roll out your private asset platform in in recent years to to get to the point where you won this award?
01:44 So, globally, uh, Franklin has really made some strategic investments in private assets. I'd say really just
01:50 before co coming out of the co years, um, we really invested in private real estate, uh, private equity secondaries
01:58 and private credit. and we've added many many different uh investment teams to those kind of areas. Uh so right now our
02:06 global platform is actually larger than uh 250 billion US uh kind of across those and we really even have some uh
02:14 investments in venture capital and hedge funds as well. So the strategy in Canada was really to take the best of what we had globally and bring them to Canadian
02:23 wealth market in a evergreen perpetual structure across each of those verticals. equity, private credit,
02:31 private real estate. So, while we were doing it, we really wanted it again uh focused along with education and and that. So, really the the idea was take
02:40 each of those verticals, bring them to Canada in an evergreen product uh and frame it with education and thought leadership for adviserss.
02:48 It's funny, you know, and and you've mentioned this already, but every private asset manager who I've spoken to will immediately tell you how vast this
02:56 universe is, right? We're talking about when we're talking about private assets, we're talking about everything that isn't public, right? That it's such a huge category. So, that's right. And getting bigger.
03:05 Yeah. And getting bigger. You're absolutely right. So, when when you moved into the space and when you started to really roll out this platform, you know, again, you you
03:12 mentioned it to some degree, but talk to me about what you chose to specialize in and and the areas where you thought Franklin Templeton can really add value here.
03:20 Yeah. So, again, our acquisition uh activity was really in in all those spaces. Uh the first one that we brought to Canada was was real estate. Globally
03:29 each of those verticals that we have is about 80 billion US. Um so the the the private real estate was the first one we
03:36 brought to Canada uh shortly followed up by private credit and we've added a few different private credit strategies uh
03:43 now as well. And probably our most successful is actually the private equity secondaries. Our Lexington team is globally wellknown and uh and
03:52 Canadian adviserss uh actually to my surprise uh actually knew what Lexington quite well. So um I would say the one
04:00 gap that Franklin has is in infrastructure. Uh globally we continue to look to uh make an acquisition in that area but in the interimm uh we've
04:08 entered into a real strategic partnership in infrastructure and uh and I would look to see you know us bringing something to the Canadian market in the fall probably time frame.
04:18 You talk about education and obviously educating adviserss is kind of the key role uh at the end of your your operation, but I'm curious about how you
04:27 educated your own team. You know, you're talking about an area like private equity secondaries. That's a complex market. Uh I've tried to wrap my head around it like three or four times and
04:35 failed in the process. Um how did you educate your wholesaler team to make sure they could really speak with authority about these subjects?
04:44 So the good thing with with Franklin Templeton is we had actually developed an education ecosystem in the US um that
04:51 won uh some awards a few years ago. Uh so with that kind of basis it was really educate our own wholesalers uh using
04:59 that program and then expand that education uh to advisers and our clients and then kind of supporting the whole thing is each of our investment teams
05:08 each of our private equity or private market investment teams um have a number of investment specialists that are available to our wholesalers are
05:15 available to our clients uh to help them with specifics in uh in each of the private areas. leads very neatly into my
05:23 next question which is what what does that advisor support look like? Talk me through what you know say I'm an adviser who's working with you on private asset
05:31 allocation. What what would I be getting from the Franklin team along with the investment product itself? you know, if if if you're an adviser that you're
05:39 you're looking to make an allocation, you get direct access to our uh institutional investment managers, uh through basically due diligence
05:46 sessions, roundts, uh we can take you down to New York where most of them are are available and uh and meet with them, webinars, events, a multitude of ways to
05:55 kind of have our specialists interact with uh with adviserss here. Um I talked about our alternatives education kind of
06:03 portal. Uh so that's that's a web-based way that uh that advisers can get facts, get implementation resources, understand
06:12 how privates uh should fit into their uh into their books of business and then just continuous education. Uh so it's
06:19 not a onceanddone. Uh we're running master classes, podcast, thought, leadership continually. And again, it's all focused on uh not just the asset
06:28 class, but how do you use it in your practice?
06:31 What are adviserss telling you they want from their private asset allocations and and that can be both, you know, specific assets that they want, but also the
06:40 utility, right? What what are they telling you they're using them for?
06:45 I think there's a general understanding in the marketplace now that there is a place for uh private assets. As the public markets have shrunk with the
06:53 number of public companies out there, uh private companies are staying private for longer. Uh I think there's um a real
07:00 goal to try to add some of that uh diversification to portfolio. So what are advisors asking us? They're looking for guidance on portfolio construction,
07:09 how to communicate private market strategies to their clients. They're looking for education, you know, all all of that type of stuff. They're really
07:17 trying to figure out how do I do this in a very measured manner into into client portfolios.
07:23 Now we're also in an interesting market environment. I mean when are we not but one where we have uh you know very strong public equity markets interesting
07:32 shifts in public debt markets you know I guess what about this current environment sort of speaks well to private assets and and what can private
07:40 assets do in this environment well we're seeing a couple of uh uh huge private companies come to market right now but um obviously you've got this
07:49 this s set of private companies that are available to invest in they can enhance enhance your risk return potential. Uh they're expanding your opportunity set.
08:00 There's a liquidity premium that you can get by by entering the private market space. So that's, you know, extra alpha that you're that you're adding to your
08:08 portfolios. And there's low correlation to public markets. So it really is a good diversifier. Um and I think all of those different things are what advisers
08:16 are looking for from from the private private markets.
08:19 There's a final question goes back to something I kind of said earlier. you know, Franklin Templeton is a big brand in this industry, but it's one that uh is tied to so many different asset
08:27 classes. Why do you think advisers in Canada should now start to associate Franklin Templeton with private assets as well?
08:35 Franklin as as a firm, we've deliberately transformed ourselves from a traditional mutual fund manager into a major player in alternatives and private
08:43 markets. Um, through those acquisitions we spoke about and also through organic growth with what we already had. So I
08:50 think advisers should should really look to FT as a leading private market manager. I think we're we're close to top 10 in the world now uh from an AUM
08:58 and and a flows perspective. And really I think the value that we bring to the to the Canadian adviserss is support
09:06 from an experienced sales team that we hear have here on the ground that can interact with with adviserss across the country.
09:12 That's an excellent note to end on Dennis. So, all I have left to say is thank you so much for taking the time and congratulations on your award.
09:19 Thank you, David. It was a pleasure and uh happy to talk to you anytime.
09:23 Thank you so much. And thank you to all of our viewers for WPTV. I've been David Katy. Have a great rest of your day.
