Franklin Mutual Shares Fund is part of an exclusive club. The $16.8 billion portfolio, which opened on July 1, 1949, is one of only 48 funds tracked by Morningstar Inc. that was open in 1949 or earlier and still exists. Mutual Shares’ average annual return of 13.18% over that entire period through June 30, 2014, is the No. 1 performance among those 48 survivors, based on preliminary Morningstar data. The S&P 500 averaged 9.64% in that span.