Franklin CEO Says Some Institutional Investors Are Ditching US Stocks

(Bloomberg) — Franklin Resources Inc. Chief Executive Officer Jenny Johnson said President Donald Trump’s tariffs are leading some large foreign investors to shift their money away from US markets.

“You definitely see non-Americans reducing — on the institutional side — some of their exposure to US equities,” Johnson, whose firm manages $1.6 trillion in assets, said Thursday in a Bloomberg TV interview. “We’ve seen that a bit.”

Johnson said Canadians, for example, “are so fundamentally offended” by Trump’s reference to the country as the 51st US state. “A comment like that has obviously had that kind of nationalist response.”

Johnson joins executives at Janus Henderson Group Plc and Amundi SA this week in confirming that some clients are pulling away from the US because of the market upheaval from the tariffs.

–With assistance from Jonathan Ferro, Lisa Abramowicz and Annmarie Hordern.