XML 26 R16.htm IDEA: XBRL DOCUMENT v2.4.1.9
Fund Summary
Franklin Custodian Funds-14 | Franklin Income Fund
Investment Goal
To maximize income while maintaining prospects for capital appreciation.
Fees and Expenses of the Fund
These tables describe the fees and expenses that you may pay if you buy and hold shares of the Fund. You may qualify for sales charge discounts in Class A if you and your family invest, or agree to invest in the future, at least $100,000 in Franklin Templeton funds. More information about these and other discounts is available from your financial professional and under “Your Account” on page 107 in the Fund's Prospectus and under “Buying and Selling Shares” on page 70 of the Fund’s Statement of Additional Information.
Shareholder Fees (fees paid directly from your investment)
Shareholder Fees Franklin Custodian Funds-14 Franklin Income Fund
Class A
Class C
Class R
Class R6
Advisor Class
Maximum Sales Charge (Load) Imposed on Purchases (as percentage of offering price) 4.25%rr_MaximumCumulativeSalesChargeOverOfferingPrice none none none none
Maximum Deferred Sales Charge (Load) (as percentage of the lower of original purchase price or sale proceeds) [1] none 1.00%rr_MaximumDeferredSalesChargeOverOfferingPrice none none none
[1] There is a 0.75% contingent deferred sales charge that applies to investments of $1 million or more (see "Investments of $1 Million or More" under "Choosing a Share Class") and purchases by certain retirement plans without an initial sales charge.

Annual Fund Operating Expenses

(expenses that you pay each year as a percentage of the value of your investment)

Annual Operating Expenses Franklin Custodian Funds-14 Franklin Income Fund
Class A
Class C
Class R
Class R6
Advisor Class
Management fees 0.37%rr_ManagementFeesOverAssets 0.37%rr_ManagementFeesOverAssets 0.37%rr_ManagementFeesOverAssets 0.37%rr_ManagementFeesOverAssets 0.37%rr_ManagementFeesOverAssets
Distribution and service (12b-1) fees 0.15%rr_DistributionAndService12b1FeesOverAssets 0.65%rr_DistributionAndService12b1FeesOverAssets 0.50%rr_DistributionAndService12b1FeesOverAssets none none
Other expenses 0.09%rr_OtherExpensesOverAssets 0.09%rr_OtherExpensesOverAssets 0.09%rr_OtherExpensesOverAssets 0.01%rr_OtherExpensesOverAssets 0.09%rr_OtherExpensesOverAssets
Total annual Fund operating expenses 0.61%rr_ExpensesOverAssets 1.11%rr_ExpensesOverAssets 0.96%rr_ExpensesOverAssets 0.38%rr_ExpensesOverAssets 0.46%rr_ExpensesOverAssets
Example
This Example is intended to help you compare the cost of investing in the Fund with the cost of investing in other mutual funds. The Example assumes that you invest $10,000 in the Fund for the time periods indicated and then redeem all of your shares at the end of the period. The Example also assumes that your investment has a 5% return each year and that the Fund's operating expenses remain the same. Although your actual costs may be higher or lower, based on these assumptions your costs would be:
Expense Example Franklin Custodian Funds-14 Franklin Income Fund (USD $)
Class A
Class C
Class R
Class R6
Advisor Class
1 year 485rr_ExpenseExampleYear01 213rr_ExpenseExampleYear01 98rr_ExpenseExampleYear01 39rr_ExpenseExampleYear01 47rr_ExpenseExampleYear01
3 years 612rr_ExpenseExampleYear03 353rr_ExpenseExampleYear03 306rr_ExpenseExampleYear03 122rr_ExpenseExampleYear03 148rr_ExpenseExampleYear03
5 years 751rr_ExpenseExampleYear05 612rr_ExpenseExampleYear05 531rr_ExpenseExampleYear05 213rr_ExpenseExampleYear05 258rr_ExpenseExampleYear05
10 years 1,155rr_ExpenseExampleYear10 1,352rr_ExpenseExampleYear10 1,178rr_ExpenseExampleYear10 480rr_ExpenseExampleYear10 579rr_ExpenseExampleYear10
If you do not sell your shares:
1 Year 3 Years 5 Years 10 Years
Class C $ 113 $ 353 $ 612 $ 1,352
Portfolio Turnover

The Fund pays transaction costs, such as commissions, when it buys and sells securities (or "turns over" its portfolio). A higher portfolio turnover rate may indicate higher transaction costs and may result in higher taxes when Fund shares are held in a taxable account. These costs, which are not reflected in annual Fund operating expenses or in the Example, affect the Fund's performance. During the most recent fiscal year, the Fund's portfolio turnover rate was 36.03% of the average value of its portfolio.

Principal Investment Strategies

Under normal market conditions, the Fund invests in a diversified portfolio of debt and equity securities. The Fund may shift its investments from one asset class to another based on the investment manager's analysis of the best opportunities for the Fund’s portfolio in a given market. The equity securities in which the Fund invests consist primarily of common stocks. Debt securities include all varieties of fixed, floating and variable rate instruments, including secured and unsecured bonds, bonds convertible into common stock, senior floating rate and term loans, mortgage-backed securities and other asset-backed securities, debentures, and shorter term instruments. The Fund seeks income by selecting investments such as corporate, foreign and U.S. Treasury bonds, as well as stocks with dividend yields the investment manager believes are attractive. The Fund may invest up to 100% of its total assets in debt securities that are rated below investment grade (also known as "junk bonds"), including a portion in defaulted securities. The Fund maintains the flexibility to invest in securities of companies from a variety of sectors, but from time to time, based on economic conditions, the Fund may have significant investments in particular sectors. The Fund may also invest up to 25% of its assets in foreign securities, either directly or through depositary receipts.

The Fund may invest up to 15% of its net assets in equity-linked notes, which are hybrid derivative-type instruments that are specially designed to combine the characteristics of one or more reference securities (usually a single stock, a stock index or a basket of stocks (underlying securities)) and a related equity derivative, such as a put or call option, in a single note form.

The Fund's investment manager searches for undervalued or out-of-favor securities it believes offer opportunities for income today and significant growth tomorrow. It generally performs independent analysis of the debt securities being considered for the Fund's portfolio, rather than relying principally on the ratings assigned by rating organizations. In analyzing both debt and equity securities, the investment manager considers a variety of factors, including:

a security's relative value based on such factors as anticipated cash flow, interest or dividend coverage, asset coverage, and earnings prospects;

the experience and strength of the company's management;

the company's changing financial condition and market recognition of the change;

the company's sensitivity to changes in interest rates and business conditions; and

the company's debt maturity schedules and borrowing requirements.

When choosing equity investments for the Fund, the investment manager applies a "bottom-up," value oriented, long-term approach, focusing on the market price of a company's securities relative to the investment manager's evaluation of the company's long-term earnings, asset value and cash flow potential. The investment manager also considers a company's price/earnings ratio, profit margins and liquidation value.

Principal Risks

You could lose money by investing in the Fund. Mutual fund shares are not deposits or obligations of, or guaranteed or endorsed by, any bank, and are not insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Federal Reserve Board, or any other agency of the U.S. government.

Market

The market values of securities or other investments owned by the Fund will go up or down, sometimes rapidly or unpredictably. A security’s market value may be reduced by market activity or other results of supply and demand unrelated to the issuer. This is a basic risk associated with all securities. When there are more sellers than buyers, prices tend to fall. Likewise, when there are more buyers than sellers, prices tend to rise.

Stock prices tend to go up and down more dramatically than those of debt securities. A slower-growth or recessionary economic environment could have an adverse effect on the prices of the various stocks held by the Fund.

High-Yield Debt Securities

Issuers of lower-rated or “high-yield” debt securities (also known as “junk bonds”) are not as strong financially as those issuing higher credit quality debt securities. High-yield debt securities are generally considered predominantly speculative by the applicable rating agencies as their issuers are more likely to encounter financial difficulties and are more vulnerable to changes in the relevant economy, such as a recession or a sustained period of rising interest rates, that could affect their ability to make interest and principal payments when due. The prices of high-yield debt securities generally fluctuate more than those of higher credit quality. High-yield debt securities are generally more illiquid (harder to sell) and harder to value.

Interest Rate

When interest rates rise, debt security prices generally fall. The opposite is also generally true: debt security prices rise when interest rates fall. Interest rate changes are influenced by a number of factors, including government policy, monetary policy, inflation expectations, perceptions of risk, and supply and demand of bonds. In general, securities with longer maturities are more sensitive to these interest rate changes.

Credit

An issuer of debt securities may fail to make interest payments or repay principal when due, in whole or in part. Changes in an issuer's financial strength or in a security's credit rating may affect a security's value.

Income

Because the Fund can only distribute what it earns, the Fund's distributions to shareholders may decline when prevailing interest rates fall or when the Fund experiences defaults on debt securities it holds.

Prepayment

Prepayment risk occurs when a debt security can be repaid in whole or in part prior to the security's maturity and the Fund must reinvest the proceeds it receives, during periods of declining interest rates, in securities that pay a lower rate of interest.

Foreign Securities

Investing in foreign securities typically involves more risks than investing in U.S. securities, including risks related to currency exchange rates and policies, country or government specific issues, less favorable trading practices or regulation and greater price volatility. Certain of these risks also may apply to securities of U.S. companies with significant foreign operations.

Focus

To the extent that the Fund focuses on particular countries, regions, industries, sectors or types of investment from time to time, the Fund may be subject to greater risks of adverse developments in such areas of focus than a fund that invests in a wider variety of countries, regions, industries, sectors or investments.

Derivative Instruments

The performance of derivative instruments depends largely on the performance of an underlying currency, security or index, and such instruments often have risks similar to their underlying instrument, in addition to other risks. Derivatives involve costs and can create economic leverage in the Fund's portfolio which may result in significant volatility and cause the Fund to participate in losses (as well as gains) in an amount that exceeds the Fund's initial investment. Other risks include illiquidity, mispricing or improper valuation of the derivative instrument, and imperfect correlation between the value of the derivative and the underlying instrument so that the Fund may not realize the intended benefits. When used for hedging, the change in value of the derivative may also not correlate specifically with the currency, security or other risk being hedged. With over-the-counter derivatives, there is the risk that the other party to the transaction will fail to perform.

Equity-Linked Notes (ELNs)

Investing in investment funds may be more costly to the Fund than if the Fund had invested in the underlying securities directly. Shareholders of the Fund will indirectly bear the fees and expenses (including management and advisory fees and other expenses) of the underlying investment funds. ELNs may not perform as expected and could cause the Fund to realize significant losses including its entire principal investment. Other risks include counterparty risk, liquidity risk and imperfect correlation between ELNs and the underlying securities.

Management

The Fund is subject to management risk because it is an actively managed investment portfolio. The Fund's investment manager applies investment techniques and risk analyses in making investment decisions for the Fund, but there can be no guarantee that these decisions will produce the desired results.

Value Style Investing

A value stock may not increase in price as anticipated by the investment manager if other investors fail to recognize the company's value and bid up the price, the markets favor faster-growing companies, or the factors that the investment manager believes will increase the price of the security do not occur.

Performance

The following bar chart and table provide some indication of the risks of investing in the Fund. The bar chart shows changes in the Fund's performance from year to year for Class A shares. The table shows how the Fund's average annual returns for 1 year, 5 years, 10 years or since inception, as applicable, compared with those of a broad measure of market performance. The Fund's past performance (before and after taxes) is not necessarily an indication of how the Fund will perform in the future. You can obtain updated performance information at franklintempleton.com or by calling (800) DIAL BEN/342-5236.

The secondary indices in the table below show how the Fund's performance compares to a group of securities that align with a portion of the Fund's portfolio and to the returns of an index of funds with similar investment objectives as the Fund, respectively.

Sales charges are not reflected in the bar chart, and if those charges were included, returns would be less than those shown.

Class A Annual Total Returns
Bar Chart
Best Quarter:Q2'0918.79%
Worst Quarter:Q3'08-15.45%

Average Annual Total Returns
(figures reflect sales charges)

For the periods ended December 31, 2014

Average Annual Total Returns Franklin Custodian Funds-14 Franklin Income Fund
Past 1 year
Past 5 years
Past 10 years
Class A Return Before Taxes
(0.41%) 8.51% 6.07%
Class A Return After Taxes on Distributions
(2.09%) 6.42% 3.90%
Class A Return After Taxes on Distributions and Sale of Fund Shares
0.18% 5.93% 3.99%
Class C Return Before Taxes
2.56% 8.89% 6.03%
Class R Return Before Taxes
3.37% 8.99% 6.14%
Class R6 Return Before Taxes
3.94% 6.52% [1]  
Advisor Class Return Before Taxes
3.86% 9.57% 6.68%
S&P 500® Index
13.69% 15.46% 7.68%
Barclays U.S. Aggregate Index (index reflects no deduction for fees, expenses or taxes)
5.95% 4.45% 4.71%
Lipper Mixed-Asset Target Allocation Moderate Funds Classification Average (index reflects no deduction for fees, expenses or taxes)
5.04% 8.26% 5.34%
[1] Since inception May 01, 2013.

No one index is representative of the Fund's portfolio.

The after-tax returns are calculated using the historical highest individual federal marginal income tax rates and do not reflect the impact of state and local taxes. Actual after-tax returns depend on an investor's tax situation and may differ from those shown. After-tax returns are not relevant to investors who hold their Fund shares through tax-deferred arrangements, such as 401(k) plans or individual retirement accounts. After-tax returns are shown only for Class A and after-tax returns for other classes will vary.