Planet Tracker has been at it again, revealing that the world’s major indexers need to be ready to incorporate all the ESG factors, or they will lose out to disruptive and innovative new index firms.
John Willis, Director of Research at Planet Tracker says: “Our agenda is to align financial markets with sustainable issues and we are trying to look at important influencers. We feel there is not enough focus on these indexing companies and they are fundamental to the operating of the capital markets.”
Also keen to embrace all things ESG, is South African asset management firm, Satrix, which has welcomed ESG ETFs into its range. Read our interview with Chief Investment Officer, Kingsley Williams on the growth of the ETF industry in South Africa and the demand for ESG products. For Williams, what is interesting is that in emerging market ESG investment, there is often a pick-up in returns due to the additional quality or mitigation of risk once ESG factors have been applied.
We also have an interview with Oktay Kavrak of Leverage Shares, on the launch of their new unleveraged single stock ETPs, which are designed to allow smaller investors access to the big and fashionable stocks.
Our In My Opinion column this week comes from China, an outline of the growing ETF business within the country from Fred Zheng at Triplicity, who reports that the total assets under management of CNY1.1 trillion (USD170 billion) enjoyed a sharp increase of 57.68 per cent over the last year, with both the number of products and the assets under management reaching a 10-year high. Zheng details what investors in China want from ETFs and predicts that the asset class is set for huge growth.
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Beverly Chandler
Managing Editor, ETF Express
Companies in this issue
Defiance ETFs
ETC Group
HANetf
Horizons ETF
Invesco
Leverage Shares
Osprey Funds
Planet Tracker
Principal Financial Group
Satrix
Triplicity
TrueMark