Franklin Templeton has made its exchange-traded funds debut in Europe with the launch of four smart beta ETFs on the London Stock Exchange and Deutsche Börse’s Xetra. Branded as Franklin LibertyShares and linked to custom proprietary indices, the launch includes a pair of multi-factor ETFs, one of which is SRI focused, and a pair of quality dividend ETFs. Patrick O’Connor, head of global ETFs at Franklin Templeton, said: “Our first European offerings aim to help investors achieve specific investment outcomes such as strong risk-adjusted returns, lower volatility and downside protection.”

Shares of the BullMark LatAm Select Leaders ETF (BMLA) are to be delisted from the NASDAQ due to the fund’s non-compliance with the minimum shareholder requirement. The ETF is issued by Horizons ETF Trust and tracks an index provided by BullMark Financial Group, an asset manager and advisory firm based in Brazil.

Lyxor has cross-listed two ETFs onto Borsa Italiana, the Lyxor EUR 2-10Y Inflation Expectations UCITS ETF (INFL) and the Lyxor EURO STOXX 50 UCITS ETF (MSE). INFL offers investors exposure to inflation expectations while MSE gives exposure to eurozone large-cap equities.

Canadian financial services firm Sun Life Global has agreed to buy Toronto-based asset manager Excel Funds Management in a move which will add ETFs to Sun Life’s roster of funds for the first time.

Franklin Templeton has adopted Euroclear’s international security structure for its European line-up of ETFs. Launched in 2013, Euroclear’s international structure for ETFs aims to bring increased efficiency to a process that had previously only been supported by fragmented domestic market practices across Europe.

Tradeweb has reported that fixed income ETFs saw net buying activity on its European-listed ETF marketplace during August with ‘buys’ outperforming ‘sells’ by six percentage points.

Strategic beta ETFs (also widely known as smart beta ETFs) may not be as distinctive as advertised – market capitalisation weighted ETFs may be able to capture some of the performance drivers of strategic beta alternatives at a lower cost, finds Morningstar.

Index provider FTSE Russell has announced changes to its Industry Classification Benchmark (ICB), a classification taxonomy used to segregate markets into industries and sectors. The adjustments include real estate becoming the eleventh ICB Industry, as well as a reshuffle of the telecommunications sector to better reflect the present state of industry evolution.

Lyxor has announced in a letter to shareholders that it is merging the US dollar-denominated and euro-denominated share classes of the Lyxor S&P 500 VIX Futures Enhanced Roll UCITS ETF. As of 3 October 2017, the euro share class will absorb its US dollar counterpart and the US dollar-denominated share class will cease to exist.

Escalating tensions relating to North Korea’s increasingly prominent nuclear ambitions have caused ETFs tracking risk assets in the Asia Pacific region to fall on Monday 4 September. The market slump followed an earthquake in North Korea on the previous day, later confirmed as being triggered by a successful nuclear weapons test.