By James Langton

(January 4 – 12:15 ET) – HedgeWorld is reporting that Mark Holowesko is scaling back his role as a mutual fund manager to start a hedge fund business at Templeton Global Advisors.

Holowesko was running the Templeton Foreign, Templeton Growth, and Templeton International mutual funds, and is also chief investment officer of global equity research for Templeton Worldwide Inc.

He took over management of several key Templeton funds from the man himself, Sir John Templeton, back in 1987. Over the past year or so he’s been stepping back from the mutual fund business, after a period where his bottom-up, value style of investing suffered.

HedgeWorld reports that Holowesko will maintain an active role in the overseeing the mutual fund group, but his major responsibility will be the new hedge fund and institutional products. The firm’s first hedge fund will aim for high-net-worth investors who can ante up the minimum investment of US$3 million.

“The new hedge fund product focuses on global equities and is expected to begin trading in February,” Templeton spokeswoman Lisa Gallegos told HedgeWorld. “For some time, Mark expressed an interest in running a hedge fund, and we’re glad that he will be staying onboard and doing it in-house through the new subsidiary.”

Late last year Templeton began signaling a greater interest in high net worth clients, first through its purchase of Bissett Investment Management Inc. in Canada, and also through its buyout of the Fiduciary Trust Company International.

“The move to create products aimed at high-net-worth continues a trend that began with the announcement that we would be acquiring Fiduciary Trust,” Gallegos said.