BMO Global Asset Management, the international fund management division of Canada-headquartered Bank of Montreal, has rolled out four new exchange-traded funds on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKEx). The funds seek to broaden the scope of ETFs available to local investors, which have thus far tended to be fairly homogeneous and largely focused on China-based exposures.
BMO has expanded its Hong Kong-listed ETF offering with the launch of four new equity funds.
BMO GAM made their ETF debut in Hong Kong in November 2014 with the introduction of three ETFs structured to help address the demand for income and growth and access to the region’s robust financial sector. The new funds build on this platform by providing investors with access to important international exposures, including the Nasdaq 100, Asia Pacific real estate, and Japanese and European equities. The latter two being USD hedged.
Ravi Sriskandarajah, Managing Director and Head of BMO Global Asset Management (Asia Pacific), commented: “These four equity ETFs are all firsts for this market and reflect BMO Global Asset Management’s ongoing commitment to offering relevant, innovative and client-focused products.
“Introducing our second series of ETFs in Hong Kong is another key milestone for BMO Global Asset Management and reflects our commitment to expanding our offerings and presence in the region. Leveraging BMO’s institutional quality platform, these ETFs are structured to provide opportunities to invest across different geographic locations and sectors, and to help investors build stronger and more diverse investment portfolios.”
Kevin Gopaul, Head of ETFs, BMO Global Asset Management, added: “Working with our local team, we’ve harnessed our global ETF expertise to deliver differentiated offerings that provide more investment options to regional investors who increasingly see the importance of diversification in a volatile market.”
The BMO NASDAQ 100 ETF (3086.HK) is the first ETF in the region to track the tech-heavy index. The Nasdaq 100 Index represents the 100 largest US and international non-financial firms listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange. Investments tracking the index tend to offer a profile of innovative and growth oriented companies. The fund has an annual management fee of 0.30%.
The BMO MSCI Asia Pacific Real Estate ETF (3121.HK) provides exposure to regional property markets, covering 13 countries with a focus on Japan, Hong Kong, Australia, China and Singapore. The fund may serve as a good alternative solution for investors seeking access to the real estate market and who want to diversify outside of Hong Kong. Ongoing management fees of 0.45% apply.
The BMO MSCI Japan Hedged to USD ETF (3160.HK) and BMO MSCI Europe Quality Hedged to USD ETF (3165.HK) track the MSCI Japan Index and the MSCI Europe Quality Index respectively while mitigating the risk of adverse currency movements against the US dollar. Each fund has a total expense ratio of 0.50%
The MSCI Japan Index is designed to measure the performance of the large- and mid-cap segments of the Japanese market. With 318 constituents, the index covers approximately 85% of the free float-adjusted market capitalization in Japan.
The MSCI Europe Quality Index tracks large- and mid-cap stocks across 15 Developed Markets countries in Europe. The index aims to capture the performance of quality growth stocks by identifying stocks with high quality scores based on three main fundamental variables: high return on equity, stable year-over-year earnings growth and low financial leverage.