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Franklin Templeton Real Estate Advisors Hires Joyce Shapiro as Managing Director for Real Assets

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  Published in Business and Finance on Monday, May 10th 2010 at 6:40 GMT by Market Wire
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NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwire - May 10, 2010) - Franklin Templeton Real Estate Advisors (FTREA) today announced that it has hired Joyce T. Shapiro to head a newly established business team dedicated to real asset multi-manager investment strategies, expanding the group's capabilities to include infrastructure, energy, water, agriculture and timber.

"Institutional investors today have shown an increased need for strategies that can provide reasonably predictable cash flows, inflation protection and the potential for outperformance necessary to meet future pension liabilities," said Shapiro, managing director -- real assets. "At the same time, rising demand for natural resources and massive capital requirements for infrastructure development worldwide has driven the need for new investment solutions. We believe real asset funds have an important role to play in this new environment, and we're confident that Franklin Templeton can be a provider of choice to our clients seeking exposure in this asset class."

"For nearly two decades, Franklin Templeton Real Estate Advisors has focused on identifying best-in-class managers globally for our private real estate multi-manager mandates, seeking to provide investors an important source of portfolio diversification and the potential for attractive risk-adjusted returns," said Jack Foster, managing director and head of FTREA. "We believe real assets share many of the same economic fundamentals as real estate, and private real asset multi-manager funds therefore are the natural extension of our business as we continue to focus on meeting evolving investor needs."

Franklin Templeton Real Estate Advisors' approach to investing real asset portfolios will entail managing risk on various levels: sectors, operations, geography, consumption groups and energy inputs, to name a few variables in the group's portfolio construction model. Due to the diverse skill sets needed for covering each of the underlying real asset sectors, FTREA believes that one of the most efficient approaches for investors to access this investment universe is a multi-manager vehicle, whose objective is to invest in best-in-class managers with proven expertise in each of the individual sectors.

FTREA and Shapiro will be building a dedicated investment team seeking to analyze, select and invest in best-in-class real asset fund opportunities. The team is expected to benefit from the investment processes at FTREA proven over the past 25 years as well as the operational and risk management support from Franklin Templeton worldwide.

Before joining Franklin Templeton, Shapiro played a key role in transitioning Brookfield Asset Management, a public operator of real assets, into the private funds management business, developing distinct real asset private funds in timber, agriculture, infrastructure, power and real estate. She spent 12 years at LaSalle Investment Management, most recently as International Director, managing the North American client team, and previously managed institutional portfolios for the organization. She was also instrumental in launching and developing the firm's private fund business in Asia.

Shapiro has also held management roles in real estate groups at several multinational banks including J.P. Morgan, Citibank and Long-Term Credit Bank of Japan. She has nearly 20 years experience as a portfolio manager of real estate and her experience extends to each of the major global real asset classes. In previous roles, she helped to establish real estate restructuring businesses in Japan and Australia and helped to launch one of the largest U.S. bank OREO (Other Real Estate Owned) groups in the early 1990s.

Since 1984, FTREA has been investing in real estate for institutional clients globally, researching and selecting leading real estate managers for its private multi-manager strategies. The group's specialized expertise and refined investment process seek to offer an efficient alternative for global property investors. FTREA's view of global real estate dynamics is captured by the insights of a diverse team of professionals with local market expertise in the Americas, Europe and Asia-Pacific, providing important cultural perspectives in this global asset class.

Franklin Templeton Real Estate Advisors is a unit of Franklin Resources, Inc. (NYSE: [ BEN ]), a global investment management organization operating as Franklin Templeton Investments. Franklin Templeton Investments provides global and domestic investment management solutions managed by its Franklin, Templeton, Mutual Series, Fiduciary Trust, Darby and Bissett investment teams. The San Mateo, CA-based company has more than 60 years of investment experience and over $586 billion in assets under management as of March 31, 2010. For more information, please call (800) DIAL BEN^® or visit franklintempleton.com.

Copyright © 2010. Franklin Templeton Investments. All rights reserved.