John Templeton, 95; philanthropist, pioneer in global investment

JOHN TEMPLETON (Courtesy of John Templeton Foundation)

John M. Templeton, a Tennessee-born investor and philanthropist who amassed a fortune as a pioneer in global mutual funds, then gave away hundreds of millions of dollars to foster understanding of what he called "spiritual realities," died yesterday in Nassau, the Bahamas, where he had lived for decades. He was 95.

His death, at Doctors Hospital, was caused by pneumonia, said Donald Lehr, a spokesman for the Templeton Foundation.

The foundation awards the Templeton Prize, one of the world's richest, and sponsors conferences and studies reflecting the founder's passionate interest in "progress in religion" and research or discoveries on the nebulous borders of science and religion.

In a career that spanned seven decades, Mr. Templeton dazzled Wall Street, organized some of the most successful mutual funds of his time, led investors into foreign markets, established charities that now give away $70 million a year, wrote books on finance and spirituality, and promoted a search for answers to what he called the "Big Questions" in the realms of science, faith, God, and the purpose of humanity.

Along the way, he became one of the world's richest men, gave up American citizenship, moved to the Bahamas, was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II, and bestowed much of his fortune on spiritual thinkers and innovators: Mother Teresa, Billy Graham, Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, the physicist Freeman Dyson, the philosopher Charles Taylor, and an array of prominent Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, and Hindus.

Inevitably, the Templeton charities engendered controversy. Critics called his "spiritual realities" a contradiction in terms, reflecting a fundamental incompatibility between science and religion. To many, the very idea of progress in religion seemed strange, and giving grants for discoveries in the field invited accusations that science was being manipulated to promote religion.

But Mr. Templeton was unmoved. A Yale graduate, a Rhodes Scholar, an audacious investor, a Presbyterian who preached open-mindedness and eschewed literal interpretations of Scripture, Mr. Templeton - who began annual meetings with prayers, he said, to clear the minds of shareholders - made billions as a pioneer in his globally diversified Templeton funds, often taking the old advice, "buy low, sell high," to extremes.

As a 26-year-old investor in 1939, when World War II began in Europe, he borrowed $10,000 and bought 100 shares each in 104 companies whose stocks were selling at $1 a share or less; 34 of the companies were in bankruptcy. A few years later, he made large profits on 100 of the companies; four turned out to be worthless.

In 1940, he bought a small investment firm that became Templeton, Dobbrow & Vance, the early foundation of his empire. Templeton embarked on mutual funds in 1954, establishing the Templeton Growth Fund in Canada to cut the taxes of many shareholders - Canada then had no capital gains tax - and to emphasize the global reach of its investment strategy. It was one of the first mutual funds to invest globally. As investor interest widened in the 1950s, he started funds specializing in nuclear energy, chemicals, electronics, and technology. In 1959, his firm, then known as Templeton Damroth, with five funds and $66 million under management, joined a surge of others in going public.

Growth was striking. The flagship Templeton Growth Fund reported a 14.5 percent average annual return from 1954 to 1992; a $10,000 investment, with dividends reinvested, would have grown to $2 million.

Mr. Templeton sold the Templeton family of funds - scores of them, with billions in assets - in 1992, and turned to philanthropies that had engaged him for decades.

John Marks Templeton was born on Nov. 29, 1912, in Winchester, Tenn. He was raised in a devout Presbyterian household and was the first student in town to go to college.

Supporting himself at Yale during the Depression, he graduated near the top of his class in 1934, won a Rhodes scholarship to Balliol College at Oxford and earned a master's degree in law. He began his Wall Street career in 1937.

That year, he married the former Judith Folk. The couple had three children. His wife died in 1951. In 1958, he married Irene Reynolds Butler, who died in 1993. His daughter, Anne Templeton Zimmerman, died in 2005, and a stepson, Malcolm Butler, died in 1995. Templeton leaves two sons from his first marriage, John M. Jr., of Bryn Mawr, Pa., and Christopher, of Colfax, Iowa; a stepdaughter, Wendy Brooks, of Delray Beach, Fla.; three grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.