Fund Management
Exchange Traded Funds, Products Continue Growing; iShares Stands Top Of The Tree
The market for index-tracking funds and products continued to be vibrant last year, new figures show.
Assets invested in actively managed exchange traded funds and products listed globally hit a record of $42 billion at the end of November, while BlackRock's iShares retained its status as the world's biggest ETF brand for 2016 as a whole.
Actively managed ETFs are funds that have a manager or team making decisions on the underlying portfolio allocation or otherwise not following a passive investment strategy. Most ETFs merely track an index of equities, bonds or commodities. Exchange traded products are similar to ETFs in the way they trade and settle but do not use an open-end fund structure.
The data on active ETFs and ETPs comes from ETFGI, a firm tracking the sector.
Record levels of assets were also reached at the end of November for active ETFs/ETPs listed in the US at $28.68 billion, in Canada with $5.58 billion, and in Asia-Pacific ex-Japan with $1.92 billion.
At the end of November 2016, the global active ETF/ETP industry had 303 ETFs/ETPs, with 398 listings, assets of $42 billion, from 59 providers listed on 16 exchanges in 12 countries.
BlackRock
The US-listed asset management giant's ETF brand, iShares, led
the industry last year, bringing in a record $140 billion in new
flows.
Overall, the global ETF industry saw net inflows of $375 billion in 2016, surpassing the previous year’s total of $348 billion.
A new growth record was set in the US with net inflows of $107 billion (2015: $97 billion), while the firm had market-leading net inflows of $32 billion in Europe. iShares was the market share leader in both regions (US: 38 per cent, Europe 61 per cent). Asia-Pacific clients also set a record for iShares ETFs bought during the year, adding over $10 billion, BlackRock said.
iShares bond ETFs gathered a record $60 billion, capturing 52 per cent of all net inflows into bond ETFs globally. iShares bond ETFs attracted record net inflows in the US ($38 billion) and Europe ($21 billion).
iShares had global assets under management of $1.3 trillion as of 31 December 2016.
