Barclays unveils ‘Women in Leadership’ ETN on NYSE Arca

Jul 14th, 2014 | By | Category: Equities

Barclays has rolled out an exchange-traded note designed to provide investors with exposure to US companies with gender-diverse executive leadership and governance.

Barclays unveils ‘Women in Leadership’ ETN on NYSE Arca

The Barclays Women in Leadership ETN (WIL) provides exposure to companies that have a female CEO and/or at least 25% female members on the board of directors.

Listed on the NYSE Arca, the Barclays Women in Leadership ETN (WIL) is linked to the Barclays Women in Leadership Total Return Index.

The index, which uses data compiled by Institutional Shareholder Services, tracks the performance of US-based listed companies that have a female CEO and/or at least 25% female members on the board of directors, whilst meeting market capitalization and trading volume thresholds.

Barbara Byrne, Vice Chairman of Investment Banking at Barclays, said: “Women are significantly underrepresented in corporate executive leadership, yet a growing body of third-party research suggests that gender-diverse leadership may correlate with relatively stronger corporate performance, as compared to companies with less gender-diverse leadership. We believe that providing ETNs and indices that enable investors to allocate capital to this theme will provide a market-based approach to help catalyze change.”

Johnny Wu, Head of EFS Sales, Americas, at Barclays, added: “As with all of our investable index products, Barclays will make the Women in Leadership index available via several investable formats, including total return swaps and structured notes as well as the ETNs. We are excited by the prospect of being able to further the conversation on the need for leading companies to have more diverse leadership representation.”

Barclays ETNs are senior, unsecured, unsubordinated debt securities issued by Barclays Bank PLC.

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