In last week’s second-quarter earnings conference call, Franklin Templeton executives were asked about MiFID II and its implications for the investment manager’s business in 2018.

CEO Greg Johnson responded as follows:

“I think the question, obviously, (is) around the unbundling and what does that mean, and I think, like everyone, we’re still very much studying it and have a group committed to doing that. I think if it’s narrow in terms of how it’s implemented, it wouldn’t have a very large impact on us. If it becomes more of a standard across the rest of the globe, obviously, we’ll have a bigger one, and I wouldn’t even want to estimate, at this stage, what that would look like.”

“I think, overall, as far as the regulations and complying with them and having new clean share classes in place, we are ready to do that and in compliance, and I don’t see any real issues just aside from the unbundling and the uncertainty, and we know some have decided to pay for research directly, and that’s something that we have not made a decision on one way or another right now.”