The Lipper team at Refinitiv reports that the European ETF industry is on course to face the highest annual number of ETF closures since its inception in the year 2000.
The Lipper team at Refinitiv reports that the European ETF industry is on course to face the highest annual number of ETF closures since its inception in the year 2000.
Despite this, assets under management in the European ETF industry (EUR874.3 billion) increased slightly over the course of 2020, while 358 ETF portfolios, which are older than three years, were not able to gather more than EUR100 million in assets under management over the course of the last three years.
Some 88 ETF portfolios were not able to gather more than EUR10 million in assets under management over the course of the last three years, Refinitiv writes, while 31 ETF portfolios were included in the ETF death-list as of 31 October, 2020.
Detlef Glow, Lipper Head of EMEA Research at Refinitiv, says: “As overall assets under management and flow patterns for the year looked quite healthy, it is not be expected that the industry is in a consolidation mode. Therefore, it is a surprise that 2020 may mark the year with the highest number of ETF closures since the inception of the European ETF industry in 2000.
“Even as some market observers may see a wider consolidation ahead for the European ETF industry and would consider the high number of ETF closures as a clear sign for this, I would not interpret the numbers in that way. From my point of view, the high number of ETF closures in Europe goes in line with high launching activity. Since not all of the new products end up meeting investor expectations, they are closed after a period of time.”
