Firm History
In 2001, Lauren Templeton founded Templeton Capital Management, LLC, a value investing boutique based in Atlanta GA. Beginning with $30M in seed capital from investment legend Sir John Templeton, the firm launched managing a group of long/short equity and concentrated long-only equity strategies on behalf of Sir John and his philanthropies. In 2007, the firm relocated to Chattanooga, TN, and also began managing long-only separately managed accounts for high-net-worth individuals and institutions outside of the Templeton philanthropies.
Applying the same strategies and methods learned under the mentorship of Sir John, the firm added global and international strategies for concentrated long-only portfolios. In 2014, Scott Phillips became a principal and Chief Investment Officer with the firm, known today as Templeton and Phillips Capital Management, LLC. Throughout its growth and over the years, the firm continues to serve high net worth individuals and institutions through the management of separate accounts, investment consulting, and its role as the manager of the Templeton and Phillips Partners Fund, LLC.
Investment Philosophy
Despite technological advances and the ability to access real-time information, successful investing over a long period depends upon behavior. Successful behavior for an investor often contradicts what works in other fields, which explains why many investors fail to meet their expectations. In most industries, it may be wise to pursue the hottest growth opportunities, but in investing, stocks quickly price in those expectations. When share prices reflect overly optimistic forecasts, disappointment often follows.
Instead, we believe it is wiser to seek out investments where market expectations are too low relative to the company’s probable long-term performance. This unique circumstance is owed to human behavior and can arise from a number of scenarios. Companies can be overlooked, stumble in their near-term performance, or see their share prices driven down by market panics, geopolitical events, pandemics, recessions, credit cycles, and so on.
Regardless of the cause, our focus is on locating pricing anomalies that result from errors in human judgment—a timeless source of attractive returns for the careful investor. More simply put, trouble is opportunity. Still, to this day, we believe John Templeton summarized it best:
“Bull markets are born on pessimism, grow on skepticism, mature on optimism, and die on euphoria. The time of maximum pessimism is the best time to buy, and the time of maximum optimism is the best time to sell.”
Lauren C. Templeton, Founder and Principal
Lauren C. Templeton is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Templeton & Phillips Capital Management, LLC. In addition to her leadership role at the firm, Ms. Templeton also serves on the Board of Directors for publicly traded corporations including, Fairfax Financial Holdings, Ltd., Fairfax India Holdings, Ltd., and Canadian Solar Inc. Prior to founding the firm in 2001, Lauren was employed with Morgan Stanley, Homrich Berg, and New Providence Advisors, a hedge fund management company, based in Atlanta, GA. Also in 2001, Lauren founded and served as President of the Southeastern Hedge Fund Association, (known today as the Southeastern Alternative Funds Association). Ms. Templeton has a long record of service in the non-profit community, having previously served as Chair for the Board of Trustees of the John Templeton Foundation (Conshohocken, PA), and two terms as a member of the Board of Trustees for the Baylor School (Chattanooga, TN). Lauren also served on the endowment committee of Rotary International from 2010-2016. Ms. Templeton received her B.A. in Economics from Sewanee: The University of the South, and she is the co-author of the international best-seller Investing the Templeton Way (McGraw-Hill, 2008).
D. Scott Phillips Jr., Principal
Scott Phillips is a Principal and Chief Investment Officer at Templeton and Phillips Capital Management, LLC. Mr. Phillips also serves as Managing Member to the Templeton and Phillips Partners Fund, LLC. Prior to joining Templeton and Phillips, Mr. Phillips owned and operated Cumberland Capital, a firm providing equity research to global and emerging market hedge funds. Before founding Cumberland, Scott was employed as a research analyst at hedge fund management company Green Cay Asset Management, where he served as the lead analyst on a hard assets fund. Prior to joining Green Cay, he was employed as a research associate at SunTrust Robinson Humphrey (and its predecessor firms: SunTrust Equitable Securities, and Robinson Humphrey). Mr. Phillips serves on the Finance Committee for the John Templeton Foundation, the Audit Committee for Templeton Foundation, Inc. and as Chairman of the Board of Trustees for the Templeton Foundation, Inc. Scott is the author or coauthor of three investment related books, including Investing the Templeton Way (McGraw Hill, 2008), Buying at the Point of Maximum Pessimism (Pearson, 2010), and coauthor to the revised edition of The Templeton Touch (Templeton Press, 2012). Mr. Phillips received his B.A. from Sewanee: The University of the South.
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