Franklin Templeton adds three new EM ETFs

Oct 16th, 2018 | By | Category: Equities

Franklin Templeton Investments has added three new emerging markets funds to its line-up of passively managed single country and regional ETFs in the US.

Patrick O'Connor, Global Head of ETFs at Franklin Templeton Investments

Patrick O’Connor, Global Head of ETFs at Franklin Templeton Investments.

Listed on NYSE Arca, the new funds provide exposure to the equity markets of Saudi Arabia, South Africa, and Latin America, bringing the total number of ETFs in the suite to 23.

They are the Franklin FTSE Saudi Arabia ETF (FLSA US), the Franklin FTSE South Africa ETF (FLZA US) and the Franklin FTSE Latin America ETF (FLLA US)

“Many investors are looking to go beyond broad-based emerging markets or developed markets portfolios to capture the differences in performance that individual countries or regions can experience at different times based on a variety of market events,” said Patrick O’Connor, Head of Global ETFs at Franklin Templeton Investments.

“We offer investors access to a large proportion of this universe in order to make these tactical allocations using passive ETFs.”

The funds are linked to FTSE Russell indices which provide broad coverage of large- and mid-cap equities within their respective markets using a market cap-weighted approach.

Similar to the previous launches, the single country ETFs (FLSA and FLZA) come with expense ratios of 0.09%, while FLLA charges 0.19%.

The low expense ratios for these ETFs significantly undercuts the fees charged on competing ETFs for these markets, all of which are provided by BlackRock: The iShares MSCI Saudi Arabia ETF (KSA US), iShares MSCI South Africa ETF (EZA US), and  iShares Latin American 40 ETF (ILF US) come with expense ratios of 0.74%, 0.62%, and 0.48% respectively.

Franklin Templeton’s fully passive suite of country and regional ETFs includes exposure to several developed markets (Australia, Canada, Europe, Europe Hedged, France, Germany, Switzerland, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan, Japan Hedged, United Kingdom and South Korea) and emerging markets (Brazil, China, Mexico, India, Russia, Taiwan and Asia ex Japan) countries.

The firm also offers actively managed and smart beta ETFs, and has over $2 billion in ETF assets under management globally.

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