FinEx, a London-headquartered ETF issuer with significant operations in Russia, has changed the index provider on seven of its ETFs; industry leader MSCI has been dropped in favour of low-cost specialists Solactive.
Simon Luhr, CEO of FinEx Funds.
The ETFs, which are all listed on Moscow Exchange, provide exposure to equity markets of Australia, China, Germany, Japan, the UK, and the US, as well as stocks from the US information technology sector.
The single-country ETFs now track indices from the Solactive Global Benchmark Series (GBS), which the Frankfurt-based index compiler unveiled in June 2018.
Each index covers the large- and mid-cap segments by tracking the top 85% of the market capitalization within the relevant country.
Similarly, the Solactive US Large & Mid Cap Technology Index, which underpins FinEx’s US information technology ETF, consists of information technology stocks derived from the US segment of the GBS.
The GBS methodology is very similar to that underpinning MSCI’s country indices, suggesting that FinEx’s decision to change index provider is the result of Solactive offering a more cost-competitive proposition.
Simon Luhr, Director of FinEx Funds, said, “Following a comprehensive review of the index provider marketplace, we chose to expand our relationship with Solactive for a range of equity indices as they provide an excellent service for a very competitive fee. Solactive’s Global Benchmark Series gives us the exact exposures we need for our range of ETFs, and we are very excited about the future growth of our respective businesses.”
Timo Pfeiffer, Head of Research at Solactive, added, “It fills us with great joy to see our Global Benchmark Series echoing well within the indexing industry, and being a market leader’s candidate of choice for a series of substantial index switches makes us very proud. We are glad to find with FinEx an asset manager which is able to service the rising demand of passive strategies in Russia.”
The funds, outlined below, have maintained their ticker codes but have been renamed to reflect the index changes.
FinEx Australia UCITS ETF (FXAU RM)
FinEx China UCITS ETF (FXCN RM)
FinEx Germany UCITS ETF (FXDE RM)
FinEx Japan UCITS ETF (FXJP RM)
FinEx UK UCITS ETF (FXUK RM)
FinEx USA UCITS ETF (FXUS RM)
FinEx USA Informational Technology UCITS ETF (FXIT RM)
According to a statement from FinEx, the firm has also licensed the Solactive GBS China ex A-Shares Large & Mid Cap Index, a reference for the performance of Chinese stocks, excluding A shares.
FinEx currently offers fourteen ETFs on Moscow Exchange. These include the FinEx FFIN Kazakhstan Equity ETF (FXKZ RM), launched in October 2018, which became the first ETF globally to provide pure-play exposure to the equity market of Kazakhstan.