Amundi has expanded its suite of socially responsible equity ETFs with a new fund providing equally weighted exposure to S&P 500 constituents with robust ESG profiles.
The Amundi S&P 500 Equal Weight ESG Leaders UCITS ETF has been listed on Deutsche Börse Xetra in euros (WELE GY) and US dollars (WELF GY).
The fund has come to market with approximately $120 million in assets.
The ETF is linked to the S&P 500 Equal Weight ESG Leaders Select Index which begins its construction process by utilizing a series of norms- and industry-based exclusions.
Specifically, the methodology removes violators of UN Global Compact principles, companies involved in controversial weapons and tobacco, and firms deriving significant revenue from alcohol, cannabis, gambling, genetically modified organisms, nuclear power, oil & gas, palm oil, pesticides, riot control, shale energy, thermal coal, and weapons.
The index then selects 40% of the companies from each GICS sector, choosing firms with the highest overall ESG scores based on an analysis of industry-specific ESG risks.
Constituents are equally weighted, and the index is reconstituted annually and rebalanced on a quarterly basis.
As of the end of June, the index contained 186 constituents. It displayed a much more balanced sector allocation with its largest exposures being information technology at 16.4% (vs. 26.8% in the S&P 500), industrials at 15% (vs. 7.8%), healthcare at 14.8% (vs. 15.1%), financials at 14.5% (vs. 10.8%), and consumer discretionary at 12.8% (vs. 10.5%).
The index has outperformed the traditional S&P 500 over the past three (10.65% vs. 9.73%), five (10.15% vs. 9.87%), and ten-year (13.53% vs. 12.66%) investment periods. Performance is annualized.
The ETF comes with an expense ratio of 0.18% and is classified as an Article 8 product under the European Union’s Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR).
Amundi offers a further seven ETFs that are styled as ‘ESG Leaders’ funds, providing exposure to global developed, US, Europe, China, Far East ex-Japan, emerging market, and emerging market ex-China equities. These ETFs are linked to MSCI indices that utilize a similar selection methodology but weight their constituents by float-adjusted market capitalization.