LONDON, July 26 |
LONDON, July 26 (Reuters) – State Street Global Advisors
(SSgA) has launched its first range of exchange traded
funds for the London Stock Exchange to tap UK investor demand
and expand its European presence in the fast-growing industry.
SSgA, the world’s second-largest provider of ETFs after
BlackRock Inc , has opened 11 of its SPDR-branded funds
specialising in fixed income, global equities and emerging
market equities to UK investors.
The move highlights SSgA’s increasing efforts at growing its
relatively small share of the European ETF marketplace and
follows earlier rollouts in Frankfurt in May. Just $1.4 billion
of the $263 billion in ETF assets SSgA manages currently comes
from the continent.
ETFs are funds that track baskets of equities, bonds or
commodities and can be traded just like stocks.
Vin Bhattacharjee, head of the intermediary business for
Europe, Middle East and Africa at SSgA, said regulatory changes
in the UK should boost demand for the funds.
“The forthcoming retail distribution review (RDR) will bring
about changes in the distribution landscape which will increase
the interest in this product set amongst retail investors
because of the uniform pricing structure of most ETFs in the
UK.”
(Reporting by Tommy Wilkes, editing by Sinead Cruise and Will
Waterman)