Franklin Templeton India has filed and opened its first Specialized Investment Fund: Sapphire Equity Long-Short. This is a notable launch — Franklin Templeton is a global asset manager with deep long-short hedge fund heritage, and they're the first foreign-affiliated AMC to enter the SIF category in India.
Sapphire's mandate is a flexicap equity long-short benchmarked to Nifty 500 TRI. The fund will use the standard 25%-unhedged-short framework SEBI permits, with a focus on quality businesses on the long side and overvalued or deteriorating businesses on the short side.
Franklin Templeton's institutional research bench gives Sapphire a structural edge over smaller AMCs — the firm runs long-short hedge funds globally and can leverage that experience for the Indian SIF context. The question is whether their pricing, fund-manager selection, and SEBI-disclosed risk framework translate into competitive post-launch performance.
₹10 lakh minimum investment, T+5 reopening after allotment, standard SIF structure throughout.