Franklin Templeton Investments has expanded its suite of ETFs in Europe with the launch of the Franklin LibertyQ AC Asia Ex Japan UCITS ETF.
Caroline Baron, Head of ETF Sales EMEA at Franklin Templeton Investments.
The fund has been listed on Deutsche Börse with cross listings planned for the London Stock Exchange, Borsa Italiana and SIX Swiss Exchange.
The multi-factor smart beta ETF tracks the proprietary LibertyQ AC Asia Ex Japan Equity Index which has a specific focus on quality and value stocks, but also encompasses other factors including momentum and volatility.
Constituents of this index are selected from the parent MSCI AC Asia ex Japan Index universe, a reference for large- and mid-capitalisation stocks from both emerging and developed countries across Asia excluding Japan.
Stocks from this parent index are assigned a composite factor score based on their exposure to the four investment style factors with a 50% weight assigned to quality, 30% to value and 10% each to momentum and low volatility.
The stocks with the highest composite factor scores are selected to become index constituents and are weighted based on a combination of market capitalisation and composite factor score. The index currently has 230 constituents, representing just one-quarter of the number of stocks within the parent index.
Caroline Baron, Head of ETF Sales EMEA at Franklin Templeton Investments, said, “As investors realise the benefits of combining factors, multi-factor strategies continue to grow in popularity, and we believe our custom factor weightings help to capture the desirable performance attributes investors are seeking. We are pleased to announce the expansion of our smart beta ETF range—this time with a new transparent, rule-based multi-factor Asian ETF, built on our active insights in the market and offered at a competitive fee of 40bps.”
The fund comes with a total expense ratio (TER) of 0.40%.
It has been listed in euros (FVSJ GY) on Deutsche Börse and will available in pound sterling (FRQX LN) and US dollars (FLQA LN) share classes on the London Stock Exchange; in euros (FLQA IM) on Borsa Italiana; and in US dollars (FLQA SW) on SIX Swiss Exchange.
The firm’s multi-factor LibertyQ suite also includes ETFs covering emerging (Franklin LibertyQ Emerging Markets UCITS ETF; TER: 0.55%), European (Franklin LibertyQ European Equity UCITS ETF; 0.25%), US (Franklin LibertyQ US Equity UCITS ETF; 0.25%) and global (Franklin LibertyQ Global Equity SRI UCITS ETF; 0.40%) equity markets.