Despite the turmoil in Libya and the continued closure of the Egyptian Stock Exchange, a Franklin Templeton fund focused on the region comfortably outperformed its peers last week.

The $127m Franklin Templeton Middle East and North Africa fund, managed by Purav Jhaver and Stephen Dover, returned 4.4% over the last business week, according to data company Financial Express, beating the IMA Specialist index, which fell 1.27%.