Although he's currently the lead investor in the San Francisco Giants, Franklin Templeton [profile] chairman Charlie Johnson rooted for the Yankees decades ago. That's one tidbit the normally low-profile Johnson revealed in a recent interview with the San Francisco Chronicle.

The piece outlines Johnson's history at the San Mateo, California-based mutual fund firm that his father started 65 years ago. The younger Johnson then favored football, not baseball. And thanks to vacationing at a hotel frequented by the Yankees during spring training during World War II, Johnson got a ball signed by all the players.

The report also says he was not perceived as a wealthy man when he started in Yale, and he was a waiter at the dining hall because the scholarship offered to him by the Yale Club of Montclair required him to.

"Then I gave up the job, because I wanted to focus more on my studies," he said.

In 1997, Institutional Investor described Johnson as someone who helps with the busy phonelines greeting callers with : "Franklin shareholder services, this is Charlie. How can I help you?"

"I always answer my own phone because I find it saves time," he told the Chronicle, "but, of course, I don't give the number out to everybody." 

Edited by: HFD


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