It is listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol BEN, in honor of Benjamin Franklin, for whom the company is named, and who was admired by founder Rupert Johnson Sr.

[2] The company was founded in 1947 in New York by Rupert H. (Harris) Johnson Sr. (1900–1989), who ran a successful retail brokerage firm from an office on Wall Street.

After Rupert Sr. retired, his son, Charles B. Johnson (Charlie), took over as president and chief executive officer in 1957 at age 24.

[9] In November 1996, Heine Securities Corporation, known for the Mutual Series of funds, merged into the Franklin Templeton complex.

[10] Fiduciary Trust Company International, a member of the Franklin family, maintained an office of over 650 employees in 2 World Trade Center at the time of the September 11 attacks in 2001.

[16] In February 2009, Barron's Magazine called Franklin Templeton "King of the Decade" among fund families over the ten-year period ending in 2008.

The combined footprint significantly deepens Franklin Templeton's presence in key geographies and creates an expansive investment platform that is well balanced between institutional and retail client AUM.

[20] In November 2021, Franklin Templeton announced its acquisition of Lexington Partners in a $1.75 billion cash deal.

[29] In August 2023, Bloomberg News reported that Franklin Templeton executives in China were mandated to attend courses on Xi Jinping Thought.

[32][33] In 2021, Franklin Templeton launched the first "tokenised" US mutual fund as a pilot – it uses a blockchain to process transactions and record share ownership.

The automated administration can trade around the clock and removes the need for brokerages, which should result in a "highly significant decrease in fees".

However, the fund actually has a high level of costs because of its small size and the fact that, as a pilot, it is maintaining traditional records in parallel.