MutualFundWire.com: Zhu and Mann Unveil a $1.68T-AUM AM's Newest ETF

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Thursday, January 22, 2026

Zhu and Mann Unveil a $1.68T-AUM AM's Newest ETF

The folks at a $1.68-trillion-AUM*, publicly traded asset manager from the Golden State are rolling out another active fixed income exchange-traded fund, this time with a focus on emerging markets. The now have an ETF business with more than $60 billion in AUM** across 88 ETFs.

Today, David Mann, head of ETF product and capital markets at Franklin Templeton [profile], and Christine Yuhui Zhu, senior vice president of Franklin Advisers, Inc. and a member of Templeton's global macro team, unveil the launch of the Franklin Templeton Emerging Markets Debt ETF (TEMD on the NYSE Arca). San Mateo, California-based Franklin Advisers serves as investment advisor to the new fund, and Singapore-based Templeton Asset Management Ltd. serves as subadvisor.

TEMD's inception date was Tuesday (January 22), and the new ETF comes with an expense ratio of 45 basis points. The new fund now has about $50.22 million in AUM***.

The PM team powering TEMD includes four Templeton global macro portfolio managers:

Vivek Ahuja, a Templeton AM PM;

Michael Sheehan, a Franklin Advisers PM;

Jaap Williams, a Templeton AM PM; and

Zhu herself.

Zhu puts the launch of TEMD in the context of Templeton's global macro team's "over three decades of experience navigating emerging markets and evaluating interest-rate, currency, and sovereign credit spread opportunities in this sector on a country-by-country basis."

"TEMD is designed to give investors a research-driven, active approach that can allocate across both the hard and local currency segments while staying disciplined about risk," Zhu states.

"We continue to see strong demand for research-driven active fixed income delivered through the ETF vehicle, especially in areas where investors want more flexibility than traditional index exposures can provide," Mann states.

TEMD is an actively managed, non-diversified series of Franklin Templeton ETF Trust. The new fund's other service providers include:

Bank of New York Mellon (BNY Mellon) as custodian, dividend-paying agent, sub-administrator, and transfer agent;

Franklin Distributors, LLC as distributor;

Franklin Templeton Services, LLC (FT Services) as administrator; and

PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP as independent accounting firm.