ETF Issuers of the Year

ETF Issuers of the Year

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Global - ETF Securities

Having launched the world’s first gold physically-backed ETP in 2003 – Gold Bullion Securities – ETF Securities built its expertise and reputation on commodity-based exchange traded products (ETPs). The firm has launched a number of new products and services over the past 12 months as part of a strategic decision to diversify away from commodities.

It offers a service, Canvas, for asset managers looking to build and launch their own exchange traded funds (ETFs), with the first two funds to be built using the service – which has generated more than 200 queries – due to be launched soon.

Asset managers have been steadily increasing their use of ETFs and this platform was launched to respond to this growing trend and help those that do not have the infrastructure, expertise or resources to build their own funds.
 
ETF Securities has also launched three short and leveraged equity ETPs on the London Stock Exchange and Frankfurtbased Xetra. The firm’s short and leveraged ETP platform is the third largest in Europe and has experienced significant growth over the past eight years.

The current range of equity products has a 12-month average daily volume of more than $20m. The range of educational material available to retail and institutional investors has been extended with the launch of ETPedia, an ETP guide specifically aimed at retail investors. The firm has also introduced a number of tools and simulators to its website, including


Europe - Lyxor Asset Management

As global investors turn to ETFs in greater numbers, some have struggled to identify the right fund for their portfolio, so means of differentiation, such as performance indicators, are increasingly important.

Lyxor has developed a robust framework that allows investors to compare and evaluate ETFs by combining tracking difference, tracking error and secondary market liquidity.

In March 2014, Lyxor dominated European flows into ETFs and in recent months has strengthened its ETF offering, through both the launch of new products and detailed research and analysis to increase the quality, efficiency and performance of its product range. It has also implemented an ETF Quality Charter to ensure every fund complies with the highest standards of performance, liquidity, risk control and transparency.

Lyxor has created a tool to help global institutional investors and advisers overcome the major challenge of choosing the best ETFs for their portfolios.

The Lyxor ETF efficiency indicator gives investors a probability-based, easy-to-understand assessment of the likelihood of future underperformance against the index and enables a straightforward comparison among funds based on the same index, meeting the increasingly sophisticated demands of participants in the ETF market.

At a time when many equity markets are getting close to historic highs, Lyxor says that, as the basis for a defensive strategy, quality income stocks stand out and indices show even lower historical volatility and drawdown than minimum volatility strategies.

Lyxor says it offers global investors unique investment solutions. Its understanding of smart-beta products aids investor’s global allocation and provides access to strategy enhancements and new investment perspectives. It has focused on the performance and quality of its offering while building up investor education


Americas - Sage Advisory Services

Sage Advisory Services is a pioneer in asset management, having provided ETFs for institutional clients since 1998 and launched one of the first all-ETF strategies in 2002.In January 2014 Sage Advisory launched the Sage Core Reserves ETF (Hold), an actively managed ultra-low duration fixed income vehicle structured by AdvisorShares.

Hold ETF provides investors with strong returns while mitigating duration risk, which is a concern for many investors due to the Federal Reserve’s tapering of its bond purchases.

The investment objective of Hold is to preserve capital while maximising income. Sage seeks to achieve this objective by investing in a broad range of fixed income securities and US dollar-denominated investment grade debt securities, with an average duration of less than one year.

Sage’s fixed income investment process applies a balanced, top-down approach focused on actively managing portfolio duration risk, yield-curve positioning, market-segment allocation and security selection.

Sage seeks to make the ultra-low duration portfolio less sensitive to interest rate changes and provide the ability to be flexible across credit quality and security selection, while minimising volatility and maintaining a high level of liquidity. Since its foundation in 1996, Sage Advisory says it has dedicated itself to developing purpose-based investments.

With a foundation built on principles of simplicity, liquidity and transparency, it continuously evaluates investments to anticipate pitfalls and steer clients toward better decisions. Sage has built up a portfolio of $10.5bn under advisory and management as of March 31 2014.

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