17-Sep-2019:  I've been buying more TGG lately - and here's why (#3 is new):

1. TGG are a good income stock - currently paying a trailing dividend yield (based on yesterday's $1.19 closing share price) of 5.9% fully franked (over 8% when grossed up to include franking credits).  That's pretty rare among globally focussed LICs - especially the "fully franked" part.  When you don't hold any ASX-listed companies in your portfolio, you don't collect any franking credits from any of your portfolio companies.  All of TGGs franking credits are therefore a result of profits they have made (capital gains mostly) in prior years and tax they have paid to the ATO on those profits.  While TGG has been a perennial underperformer during this long bull market in terms of underperforming their own benchmark (the MSCI index), they've had periods of outperformance in the past during rougher times (such as the GFC) and because they're a LIC, they have a profit reserve, and the ability to smooth out their dividends (rather than pay all of their profits out at the end of the year in which they earned them as most LITs and other Trusts have to do, except for MGG, but that's another story).  For those who want exposure to global shares (ex-Australia) but also need reliable income, TGG is certainly an option worth looking at.
2. TGG shares are cheap.  Their ex-div before-tax NTA on Friday (13th Sept) was $1.413, and they closed yesterday (the following trading day) at $1.19, being a 15.78% discount (NTA being the sum of their net tangible assets on a per share basis).  On Friday they closed at $1.17, being a 17.2% discount to their NTA that day.  They are cheap for a number of reasons and one of those is that they've just gone ex-dividend for their final dividend, being their larger dividend, and this ex-div period is traditionally weak for LICs, and especially for TGG.
3. Since TGG's last disclosed NTA (on Friday 13th September) we have had the world's largest oil refinery hit by drone strikes and the initial estimates that half of the 50% of production that was initially lost could be back online within a matter of days now looks like it could have been a tad optimistic - see here:  Aramco to Face Weeks Without the Majority of Abqaiq’s Oil Output.  Why is this relevant?  TGG hold two of the world's four largest oil companies (BP & Shell) as top 10 portfolio positions.  The other two (of the world's largest 4) are Chinese.  UK-listed BP was TGG's 2nd largest position at August 31st and Royal Dutch Shell (RDS - also UK-listed) was their 7th largest position.  Australia's largest energy (oil & gas) stocks (WPL, STO, OSH, BPT) were all up by between 4% and 7% yesterday, and they're all up again today.  RDS (Shell) was up 2.5% overnight (their Monday) and BP was up 4%.  There is some talk that the oil price could rise by as much as 50%.  Again, perhaps a tad optimistic, but it's more likely to rise than to fall in the current environment.  Their good exposure to large global oil companies won't do TGG any harm at this point, and they bought them at lower levels of course.

I have also mentioned previously that TGG are value investors - despite the word "Growth" in their name (the Templeton Global Growth Fund) - and that bull markets are traditionally harder times for value investors to shine.  TGG clearly have NOT shined over the past little while (up to 10 years) in terms of outperformance against their benchmark (their benchmark includes all of the high-growth tech stocks that have done so well for growth investors over the past 10 years, the same very-high-PE stocks that could well fall further than most in a decent correction or bear market - TGG doesn't hold very-high-PE stocks and they actually hold precious little in the way of tech stocks at this point).  However, as we near the end of this long bull market, and the next bear market gets closer and closer, TGG's next period of outperformance could well also be getting closer and closer.

To summarise, good reliable income (that is fully franked), global exposure to companies that don't look expensive and should fall less than most in a market correction, crash, or a bear market, global oil exposure at a time when the oil price is rising over geopolitical and supply concerns, and the shares are available at a material discount to their net asset value (NAV, which most LICs refer to as their NTA - net tangible assets) - so cheap as well.  That's why I hold TGG, and that's why I was buying more yesterday.

Templeton Global Growth Fund (ASX:TGG) June 2019 Quarterly Report

This is an interesting LIC that I hold shares in (although it's another one that never made it onto my Strawman.Com scorecard).

They are definitely value investors despite having "Growth" in their name.  They are NOT growth investors, other than believing (as the company's founders did) that you can GROW your investment capital by investing in quality companies when those shares are available at a material discount to their intrinsic value.  Of course, the best approach is to have a value investing mindset and to target those companies with good growth outlooks.  The traditional growth investor tends to have little time for intrinsic valuations (the stuff that value investing is based on) and buys companies who have share prices that are rising.  The trend is their friend, ...until it isn't. 

The past 10+ years have been very good for growth investors, and rather challenging for the traditional value investors like TGG.  In fact TGG has underperformed their benchmark (the MSCI index) over all timeframes up to and beyond 10 years.  So Why oh Why would you invest in such a poor performing LIC?

There are a couple of reasons.

1. The Wilson Asset Management Group (WAMG) owns 10.18% of TGG - which they hold in their WAM Active (WAA) & WAM Capital (WAM) LICs.  Geoff Wilson has a track record of encouraging improved performance in underperforming LICs via a number of means, including the threat of WAMG taking over the management of the LIC themselves, which most recently occurred with CYA - Century Australia Investments - which has now been rolled into WAM Leaders fund (WLE).  Geoff doesn't always get exactly what he wants - he lost control of HHV (the Hunter Hall Global Value Fund) to Pengana (HHV is now PIA - the Pengana International Equities Fund), but when Geoff becomes involved in another LIC (especially when he buys a substantial holding in that LIC), it is generally a good thing for the shareholders of that LIC - or at least for the ones who were in it before Geoff did get involved.  A word of caution however, WAMG have been substantial holders of TGG for a number of years now, so things aren't happening quickly there.  One school of thought is that Geoff is waiting for his own global fund - WAM Global (WGB) - to establish a positive track record of outperformance - and then he will get serious about TGG.

2. In the meantime, we have TGG trying to appease their own shareholders (including GW) by improved communication, and active share buybacks.  Additionally, they are increasing their dividends, including recently re-establishing their interim dividend for the first time in many years (they had been paying just the one final dividend each year).  

3. Value Investing will have its time in the sun again, and that may well be during the bear market that follows this bull market.  Growth investing tends to work best in bull markets, and not so well when markets are falling, because the companies on the most rediculously high valuations (the ones the growth investors are riding) are often the ones that get smashed the hardest when things turn south again.  Growth investing relies on positive sentiment continuing, while value investing tends to ignore sentiment and focus on fundamental underlying (or intrinsic) value, value which remains there in both the good and the bad times.  Value investors do best in the depths of bear markets when everybody is selling indiscriminately (running for the hills), because they have the ability to dispassionately buy quality companies that have become way oversold in the knowledge that, "this too will pass", and when the panic has run its course, eventually those companies will once again be priced on their earnings, quality and outlook.  In other words, TGG may be one of those rare companies that actually outperform in a bear market.  And bear markets always follow bull markets.

4. TGG is trading at a substantial discount to its NTA (net tangible assets), so you can effectively buy shares in a parcel of quality global stocks, like Royal Dutch Shell, BP, Oracle, Siemens, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Allergan, Singapore Telecommunications, Sanofi and Standard Chartered, at a discount to what those shares are trading at on the market.  You can then win in two ways - either via the SP-to-NTA gap reducing, or via the NTA increasing (and dragging the SP up with it).

Further reading:

https://www.franklintempleton.com.au/investor/resources/investor-tools/templeton-maxims

https://www.franklinresources.com/ftresources/about-us/history

https://www.intelligentinvestor.com.au/templeton-global-growth-fund-tgg-1806521

https://www.fool.com.au/2018/08/08/top-fund-manager-thinks-this-share-is-a-value-opportunity/

https://www.investsmart.com.au/investment-news/the-next-amp-capital-china-growth-fund/138146

[That last one is two years old, so much has occurred since Mitch Sneddon wrote it, but it's still worth a read]

Disclosure:  I hold TGG shares.