At today's Franklin Templeton Portfolio Managers Luncheon held at Aquavit Restaurant in midtown Manhattan (and nicely orchestrated by Prosek Partners) , a few senior members of the Franklin Templeton Investments and Mutual Series investment team came together to speak over food and to a room full of reporters.

The speakers included Wylie Tolette, the CFA, CPA, senior vice president, and director, performance analyses and investment risk at Franklin Templeton Investments; Philippe Brugere-Trelat, executive vice president, and portfolio manager at Franklin Mutual Advisers; Edward D. Perks, CFA, senior vice president, and director of portfolio management at Franklin Equity Group, and Cindy L. Sweeting, CFA, President - Templeton Investment Counsel, director of portfolio management at Templeton Global Equity Group.

There were roughly 25 reporters present. Among us were reps from the Wall Street Journal, Yahoo! Finance, The Financial Times, Barron's and Reuters. We shyly feasted on a lunch that consisted of–for starters, an odd jícama "salad," a main course of either beef, chicken, or the generic and mysterious "vegetarian" option. The meal was topped with a fruit and cookie dessert. Salt was the first and foremost ingredient in all served.

The present-day philosophy of Franklin and Templeton was greatly discussed, with the key takeaway being that none of these guys are in it for the short term.

Longterm stock-picking is how these firms roll and Europe, still facing a long way to go its way out of the global financial crisis, is hot real estate, as that is where "the fear, anxiety, and pessimism," to borrow Cindy Sweet's words, is at a high–and that's where "you are likely to uncover bargains," Sweet says.

The moral of today's luncheon? Jícama sucks as a main salad ingredient and bad news could be destined to blossom into a great investment.  

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