Nordea, Northern Europe’s largest financial services company, has introduced the Nordic region’s first actively managed exchange-traded funds: the Nordea Global Emerging Market Equities UCITS ETF and the Nordea Stable Equities UCITS ETF.

Investment giant Nordea has introduced the Nordic region’s first actively managed ETFs.

The funds have been listed in Sweden and Finland on the Nasdaq OMX Stockholm and Nasdaq OMX Helsinki exchanges.

Actively managed ETFs (also known simply as Active ETFs) share many structural characteristics with passively managed index-linked ETFs, which make up the vast majority of ETFs. However, they differ in that they seek to achieve their investment objectives through the use of active management, typically taking positions that deviate from the fund’s underlying benchmark index.

Jari Kivihuhta, CEO Nordea Investment Funds, said: “As the largest financial services group in the Nordics, Nordea is the first issuer to introduce actively managed funds in Finland and Sweden that are traded on exchange. The listed ETFs mainly target self-directed investors that value a cost-efficient and convenient solution to manage risk. With these two new funds customers can diversify their portfolios through one single investment in either emerging markets or more stable shares. It will be interesting to see the investor feedback for these products.”

Lauri Rosendahl, Head of Equities and Derivatives Markets at Nasdaq OMX Nordic, added: “As the European ETF market continues to grow we are experiencing an increased interest from fund issuers to also list their actively managed products. By listing managed funds on exchange, fund issuers gain access to a new distribution channel where investors can buy and sell their funds through a broker in real-time, just like when trading a stock. We are excited to welcome Nordea as the first Nordic bank to enter this space and look forward to adding more participants as the segment grows.”