Hartford Funds has launched the Hartford Global Impact NextShares Fund (HFGIC), the firm’s first NextShares product.
The fund seeks long-term capital appreciation by investing in companies throughout the world that it believes are likely to address major social and environmental challenges.
“The Hartford Global Impact NextShares Fund is yet another step we are taking in listening to financial advisor demand for lower-cost, tax-efficient, and innovative products that can help investors reach their goals,” says Vernon Meyer, Chief Investment Officer of Hartford Funds.
“The Hartford Global Impact NextShares Fund allows us to offer actively managed strategies while also providing investors the opportunity to align their portfolios with their values.”
“We are proud to partner with Hartford Funds to bring Hartford Global Impact NextShares Fund to market,” says Stephen Clarke, President of NextShares Solutions LLC. “It is the first equity NextShares product to invest in companies whose core business seeks to address the world’s major social and environmental challenges.”
NextShares, which, as an exchange-traded managed fund (ETMF), offer investors a new way to tap into and capitalise on actively managed strategies with potential cost and tax advantages, seek to outperform their benchmark index and peer funds based on their manager’s investment insights and research judgments. NextShares offers the potential benefits of protecting the confidentiality of fund trading information and providing trading cost transparency to fund investors.
Hartford Global Impact NextShares Fund will invest in companies that focus their operations in areas that address themes including, but not limited to, sustainable agriculture and nutrition, health, clean water and sanitation, affordable housing, education and training, financial inclusion, narrowing the digital divide, alternative energy, resource stewardship and efficiency, as determined by the sub-adviser, Wellington Management Company LLP (“Wellington Management”). The Fund will operate as a “feeder fund” under a master-feeder structure along with the Hartford Global Impact mutual fund, with both funds investing all of their assets in shares of the Global Impact Master Portfolio.
The Hartford Global Impact NextShares Fund complements Hartford Funds’ two existing socially responsible investment products, the Hartford Global Impact Fund (HGXAX) and the Hartford Environmental Opportunities Fund (HEOMX).
Wellington Management’s Eric Rice, Managing Director and Portfolio Manager, and R Patrick Kent, Managing Director and Portfolio Manager, will serve as the portfolio managers of the Hartford Global Impact Master Portfolio.
