San Mateo, CA, March 9, 2022 – Franklin Templeton today announced the appointment of Lloyd Nemerever as vice president, portfolio manager and head of Municipal Bonds SMA Strategies for Franklin Templeton Fixed Income. He joins on March 28, 2022, coming from Goldman Sachs Asset Management. He will report to Ben Barber, director of Municipal Bonds for Franklin Templeton Fixed Income, and will be based in New York City.
In this newly created role, Nemerever will lead portfolio management for Franklin Templeton Fixed Income’s retail municipal bond separately managed account (SMA) strategies, including the construction of new portfolios customized to meet distinct client needs. He will work with the team’s existing group of dedicated SMA-focused portfolio managers who support a broad array of SMA offerings within the municipal bond space.
“We are tremendously excited to welcome Lloyd and deploy his multiple decades of experience in building and managing SMAs for retail clients,” said Barber. “In the current climate, we see a lot of interest in our tax-free strategies and the active management that we provide to select the best opportunities. SMAs are a growing and important part of our municipal bond business.”
In 2021, Cerulli reported municipal fixed income as a top 10 objective for manager-traded SMAs with over $300 billion in industry assets, the second largest SMA asset class, emphasizing the critical importance municipal bonds have in building resilient and balanced portfolios for clients.
“Munis tend to perform better in a rising rate environment, and their tax-exemption becomes more powerful and attractive as rates climb,” said Sam Marciano, head of SMA distribution at Franklin Templeton. “As interest in municipal bond SMAs continues to rise, Franklin Templeton brings one of the largest and deepest municipal bond benches in the industry, now bolstered by an additional industry veteran in Lloyd Nemerever.”
“Municipal bonds are one of the key capabilities that Franklin Templeton Fixed Income offers, and bringing aboard seasoned talent to provide the best investment solutions for our clients is a key focus for us,” said Sonal Desai, CIO, Franklin Templeton Fixed Income. “Lloyd joins a very seasoned and capable team, and I am excited to see our SMA offerings continue to flourish with his contributions.”
Nemerever said, “I am very excited to be joining the premier municipal bond team at Franklin Templeton, and I look forward to taking the firm’s already robust municipal bond SMA capabilities to the next level.”
Nemerever brings 29 years of experience in fixed income investing and portfolio construction. He held various roles while at Goldman Sachs, including serving as a Municipal SMA Portfolio Manager and Head of Municipal SMA Business. He is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) charterholder.
Franklin Templeton Fixed Income’s 25-member municipal bond team manages a wide variety of single state and national municipal bond strategies for investors in the US and beyond, via a comprehensive fund lineup, SMAs and institutional accounts. Municipal bond investing has been a pillar for Franklin Templeton since 1977.
Franklin Templeton is a leading provider in the high-growth SMA industry, with approximately $136 billion in SMA assets under management globally, managed by its various specialist investment managers, as of December 31, 2021.
Franklin Templeton has $642 billion in fixed income assets globally across its various specialist investment managers, including Franklin Templeton Fixed Income, which had $161 billion in AUM, with $72 billion of that managed by its municipal bond team led by Barber, as of December 31, 2021.
About Franklin Templeton
Franklin Resources, Inc. [NYSE:BEN] is a global investment management organization with subsidiaries operating as Franklin Templeton and serving clients in over 155 countries. Franklin Templeton’s mission is to help clients achieve better outcomes through investment management expertise, wealth management and technology solutions. Through its specialist investment managers, the company offers boutique specialization on a global scale, bringing extensive capabilities in equity, fixed income, multi-asset solutions and alternatives. With offices in more than 30 countries and approximately 1,300 investment professionals, the California-based company has 75 years of investment experience and over $1.5 trillion in assets under management as of January 31, 2022. For more information, please visit franklintempleton.com and follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.
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