Glenn Freeman: In this week's "3 Top Picks" Peter Wilmshurst from Franklin Templeton is talking about three companies that are very well-known within their respective fields, but some investors might be surprised to learn that they actually still represent some value opportunities.

Peter Wilmshurst: So, financials is an area that we've been overweight really for the last five years and there's been an evolution of the stocks that we hold within the financials and even the markets we're invested in and the like.

So, European banks even within the broader financials context would be the area that we think is most attractive. It doesn't mean it ends up being 30 per cent of our portfolios, but it is an area where you can still buy a number of banks which have fixed their capital position, fixed their liquidity position, starting to get back to loan growth, bringing costs down, generating pretty attractive returns and starting to pay more of it out to us as investors.

So, BNP would be a good example of a – it's not going to set anyone's hearts racing, it's not going to be generating 20 per cent-plus return on tangibles anytime soon. But it's a bank where you can buy even with the problems having largely gone away and having fix the business, you can buy it at around 7 or 8 times earnings; 50 per cent payout ratio giving you a 5 per cent-plus dividend yield and the equity they are retaining, they are growing their business pretty intelligently.

So, the energy sector is an area that we've been overweight before the oil price bottomed, through the bottoming of the oil price and through this recovery and there's clearly been some changes in the stocks that we've held through that period. The market got very depressed in early 2016 when the oil price was in the 20s.

It's got more excited somewhat with the oil price back up in the 60s and 70s. But there's been a disconnect really between some of the stocks and how well they have performed in the oil price. So, we wouldn't be sitting here arguing today that the oil price is going to go up a lot from here. It's trading at about what is we think a long-term sustainable level.

Shell is a company that, if the oil price stays somewhere in the 60s and they deliver on their cost cutting and their CapEx cutting as they have been doing, that will give you roughly a 10 per cent free cash flow yield at current valuations. You will get 5 per cent, 6 per cent of that back as dividend yield and with the reductions they've been able to make in CapEx, they will start to grow their volumes again in due course.

They have got the balance sheet in order. So, it's one that you don't have to argue the oil price goes up anymore; you just got to argue that the free cash flow they are delivering at current oil prices, it still gives you a pretty compelling valuation story now. So, Shell is one we've held for a while. It's done okay, but we still think it looks pretty attractive value.

So, technology, when people talk about the markets being hot, they usually to the FAANGs, or Alibaba, Tencent and the like in China. And while we've held technology stocks over the years and there's some we've held for a while, it's certainly tougher to find value in technology today. But we still think there's some opportunity. Oracle is a name that we've also held for a few years. It's going through a transition at the moment as most of the software players are as corporations and even individuals to some degree transition from having their software deployed on the hardware that you have in your office, in your home, to a cloud-based infrastructure. And Oracle still runs the mission-critical databases for the vast bulk of the big companies out there. Those companies are certainly starting to transition to the cloud and they will continue to do that over time. Oracle will probably win some of that work as a cloud vendor, but critically we think their databases are just well ensconced. They are the ones running mission-critical for banks, retailers, all the really big users.