BlackRock has unveiled a new suite of sustainability-focused equity ETFs on London Stock Exchange. The suite comprises six ETFs across a range of single-country and regional exposures and is aimed at the growing number of investors seeking to align their moral values with long-term investment objectives. The funds track MSCI ESG indices and are being marketed as part of the issuer’s ‘Core’ ETF range of low-cost portfolio building blocks. Stephen Cohen, Head of iShares EMEA at BlackRock, said the ETFs would “play a key role in bringing sustainable investing to the heart of investor portfolios.”

Passive equity managers continue to lead the price war by cutting fund fees at a faster rate than their actively managed peers, according to a report from Morningstar that looked at the effect on fund fees for UK investors since the implementation of the Retail Distribution Review (RDR) in 2013. Jose Garcia-Zarate, Associate Director at Morningstar, commented, “There is no doubt that the RDR has influenced the marketplace positively. There is greater transparency of fees for the investor and this has brought to the fore the issue of the assessment of value at a fund level.”

Tabula Investment Management has launched its first ETF – the Tabula European Performance Credit UCITS ETF (TCEP LN) – on London Stock Exchange, providing exposure to European credit through an index tracking the credit default swap (CDS) market. The fund aims to provide a competitive yield without the direct interest rate risk inherent in traditional corporate bond indices. Michael John Lytle, CEO of Tabula, said the new ETF offers “precise credit exposure and the ability to increase or decrease it whenever you want to”.

BMO Global Asset Management has reduced the fees on a number of its London Stock Exchange listed corporate bond and equity income ETFs. Kevin Gopaul, Head of Quantitative Strategies & ETFs at BMO Global Asset Management, commented, “As our ETF business has continued to grow globally, we have been able to build economies of scale, which means we are now in a position to pass even further cost savings onto our clients.”

WisdomTree has introduced a medley of currency-hedged share classes on the London Stock Exchange, Xetra and Borsa Italiana for its WisdomTree AT1 CoCo Bond UCITS ETF. The new share classes offer a degree of exchange rate risk mitigation between the currency denomination of fund’s underlying holdings and the base currency of the share class – US dollars, pound sterling, or euros.

First Trust has launched a distributing share class of the First Trust Eurozone AlphaDEX UCITS ETF on London Stock Exchange. With an index yield of almost 3%, the new listing will likely appeal to investors seeking a combination of current income and capital growth.

Seven issuers were active on London Stock Exchange in July, listing nineteen new ETFs or share classes, bringing the total number of new listings, including exchange-traded products, to 243 year-to-date. There are now 1,097 ETFs and 487 other ETPs listed on the exchange, represented by more than 2,000 different trading lines across various currency, currency-hedged, distributing and accumulating share classes.

HANetf has unveiled the Authorised Participants (APs) committed to provide liquidity to its white-label ETF platform. The firm, which launched in August last year, is expected to announce its first ETFs within weeks.

State Street Global Advisors has listed a distributing share class of its SPDR FTSE UK All-Shares UCITS ETF onto Zurich’s SIX Swiss Exchange. The new share class trades in Swiss francs under the ticker FTAD SW. UK stocks currently pay a healthy dividend – the yield on the FTSE All-Share is 3.64% – meaning the new share class will likely appeal to investment managers building income-focused portfolios.

Lyxor has introduced pound sterling-denominated share classes for two of its ‘core’ ETFs listed on the London Stock Exchange. The new share classes offer low-cost GBP access to eurozone companies via the Euro Stoxx and MSCI EMU indices.