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BlackRock has rolled out two actively managed equity exchange traded funds for European investors.
The Ireland-domiciled iShares World Equity High Income and iShares U.S. Equity High Income Ucits ETFs, which have been listed in Frankfurt and Amsterdam, are the US fund giant’s first ETFs aimed at investors in Europe that integrate an active, systematic strategy into the ETF wrapper.
According to the world’s largest asset manager, the launch of the two products offers investors “a powerful combination of BlackRock’s active management capabilities and experience with the breadth and scale of the iShares platform”.
Both ETFs, which have a total expense ratio of 0.35 per cent, are designed to generate high income through actively managing a “diversified basket of primarily dividend paying stocks and by selling index call options”.
In 2020 the firm launched three actively managed multi-asset ETFs that invest in other ETFs.
The new ETFs are managed by BlackRock’s systematic team in combination with the iShares ETF platform teams.
Raffaele Savi, Robert Fisher and Anna Hawley are the portfolio managers of the global high income equity strategy, while the US-focused vehicle is managed by Savi, Fisher and Travis Cooke.
Commenting on the launch, Jane Sloan, head of global product solutions for Europe, the Middle East and Africa at BlackRock, said: “Our clients’ business models in Europe are rapidly changing — a shift to centralised investment propositions, a focus on whole portfolio outcomes, a rise in digital wealth platforms, a new market regime — all mean our clients require a broader set of investment strategies across index and active, including the wrappers they’re delivered in.”
She added that the two active ETF strategies create “an important new avenue of choice and further access to investing”.
News of the launches comes after it was reported that Ark Invest, the US-based ETF provider led by Cathie Wood, is to launch its first products, three active ETFs, for the European market in April.
BNP Paribas Asset Management launched its first active ETFs in Europe in February.
Ignites Europe reported last October that JPMorgan was planning an active ETF expansion in Europe, after becoming the region’s biggest provider of this product type.
*Ignites Europe is a news service published by FT Specialist for professionals working in the asset management industry. Trials and subscriptions are available at igniteseurope.com.
