Swiss & Global rolls out actively managed equity ETFs on Six Swiss Exchange

Mar 31st, 2014 | By | Category: Equities

Swiss & Global Asset Management has broadened access to its range of actively managed “Julius Baer Smart Equity” exchange-traded funds with the roll-out of the funds on the SIX Swiss Exchange. Julius Baer is a brand of Swiss & Global.

Swiss & Global rolls out actively managed equity ETFs on Six Swiss Exchange

Michele Porro, Head of Distribution at Swiss & Global Asset Management.

It becomes the first provider to list actively managed equity ETFs on the Zurich-based exchange.

The Julius Baer Smart Equity ETFs, which made their debut on the Deutsche Börse in Frankfurt on 29 June 2012, were the first fully actively managed equity funds in the active ETF segment.

The range comprises four UCITS-compliant ETFs offering exposure to world, emerging markets, European and Asian equities. They are benchmarked to the MSCI AC World, Emerging Markets, Europe and Asia Pacific ex Japan daily total return net indices, respectively, and are available in a range of currency share classes.

Each ETF holds up to 200 positions and is fully invested in equities. They do not use derivatives such as swaps, futures or options. Securities lending and borrowing is also not allowed, thereby not exposing investors to any issuer or counterparty risk.

The ETFs combine the advantages of conventional exchange-traded funds – transparency, cost efficiency and liquidity – with the potential strengths of an active investment strategy. The ETFs use a systematic approach to invest in selected equities from their respective MSCI benchmarks, with each position subject to a qualitative check before implementation.

The funds aim to outperform their relevant passive benchmarks by combining two proprietary systematic strategies in one portfolio to effectively exploit price trends and valuation anomalies: (i) The systematic trend approach focuses on investment opportunities driven by the behaviour of investors. It exploits short and medium-term price anomalies by identifying trends and trend reversals based on technical indicators. The stocks are equally weighted. (ii) The systematic value approach focuses on stock valuation. It identifies and exploits price anomalies on the basis of medium and long-term valuation parameters. The stocks are weighted by market capitalisation.

The higher the risk-adjusted return as measured by the ex-post information ratio, the higher the respective pool’s weight in the fund.

Michele Porro, Head of Distribution Swiss & Global Asset Management, said: “Swiss & Global stands for active management. These new products capitalise on our proven twenty-year track record in systematic stock picking and combine this expertise with the advantages of exchange-traded products. This enables us to offer the transparent and liquid products many investors seek. ETFs have witnessed significant growth and have become an important part of the fund industry in recent years, so we feel that this major product innovation closes a gap in the Swiss fund offering.”

Stefan Fröhlich, lead fund manager of the ETFs at Swiss & Global, added: “The aim of our active strategy is to avoid and at the same time exploit the typical human errors in the investment process. These include temporary overreactions and the strong herd instinct of many investors. We select the stocks in a very systematic way based on strict rules that we have developed over a number of years. In addition, every position is also subject to a qualitative check by an experienced portfolio manager before implementation. For the first time we are now in a position to offer investors access to our investment expertise in the form of ETFs.”

The range, listed below, is available to retail and institutional clients in Switzerland, Germany, the UK, Austria, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, France and Spain.

JB Smart Equity UCITS ETF World, EUR (JBSEWE)
JB Smart Equity UCITS ETF World, USD (JBSEWU)
JB Smart Equity UCITS ETF World, CHF (JBSEWC)

JB Smart Equity UCITS ETF Emerging Markets, EUR (JBSEME)
JB Smart Equity UCITS ETF Emerging Markets, USD (JBSEMU)
JB Smart Equity UCITS ETF Emerging Markets, CHF (JBSEMC)

JB Smart Equity UCITS ETF Europe, EUR (JBSEEE)
JB Smart Equity UCITS ETF Europe, CHF (JBSEEC)

JB Smart Equity UCITS ETF Asia, EUR (JBSEAE)
JB Smart Equity UCITS ETF Asia, USD (JBSEAU)
JB Smart Equity UCITS ETF Asia, CHF (JBSEAC)

Each fund charges a management fee of 0.45%.

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