Stockholm (NordSIP) – On the heels of last year’s the successful launch of the Global Government ESG ETF, and in response to regulatory and investor demands, UBS has launched an ETF that applies ESG screens to global corporate bonds.
The UBS ETF (LU) Bloomberg Barclays MSCI Global Liquid Corporates Sustainable UCITS ETF has a diversified underlying exposure spanning more than 320 corporate issuers. It tracks the Bloomberg Barclays MSCI Global Liquid Corporates Sustainable Bond Index, upon which it applies a liquidity filter and an ESG filter based on MSCI’s ESG methodology. Performance-wise, the new ESG ETF is expected to track its benchmark index, which outperformed the standard Global Aggregate Corporate index by +4.37%, between May 2015 and May 2020.
“We’ve seen how ESG ETFs outperformed their ‘standard’ peers during the volatility caused by the coronavirus pandemic, and investors are increasingly demanding sustainability aspects to products,” said Florian Cisana (Pictured), Head Passive & ETF Specialist Sales Strategic Markets EMEA at UBS AM. “With this launch, we’re able to provide a core ESG exposure based on a significant and widely used portfolio building block that caters to clients’ needs.”
“At UBS AM, we want to be the leading provider of sustainable financial products, allowing clients to reach their investment goals without compromising on their ESG objectives,” Michael Baldinger, Head of Sustainable and Impact Investing at UBS Asset Management, said. “This launch is just another example of how we continue to innovate and offer clients convenient and flexible access to sustainable investments.”
UBS’s new global corporate sustainable ETF is available on key European exchanges, including Xetra, Borsa Italiana and SIX Swiss Exchange. The ETF is registered for retail and institutional/professional investors in Sweden, Finland and Norway, and for institutional/professional investors in Denmark.
UBS ETFs is one of the market leaders in ESG/SRI ETFs. The asset manager oversees 85 sustainable ETFs and USD 12 billion assets under management, holding a 32.2% market share in Europe as of end-April 2020.
Image Courtesy of UBS Asset Management
