Robeco will soon launch five actively managed equity strategies in its initial push into Europe’s ETF market, ETF Stream can reveal.
The five ETFs that have been approved by the Central Bank of Ireland (CBI) are:
Robeco 3D Global Equity UCITS ETF
Robeco 3D US Equity UCITS ETF
Robeco 3D European Equity UCITS ETF
Robeco 3D EM Equity UCITS ETF
Robeco Dynamic Theme Machine UCITS ETF
Nick King (pictured), head of ETFs at Robeco, told ETF Stream: “We are making good progress with the development of our ETF capability and are pleased to confirm that we have recently obtained regulatory approval to launch our first set of ETF products.
“Our ETFs will be leveraging our well-established quantitative investing and fundamental capabilities and our expertise in sustainable investing. We look forward to sharing more information at the launch.”
The news comes after the firm’s 2023 annual report said it would launch active ETFs “to provide broader access to Robeco’s intellectual property” in the second half of this year.
The Dutch asset manager has also made key appointments to facilitate its entry to ETFs, including poaching King from Fidelity to head up its ETF division last September and Dorcas Phillips as head of ETF capital markets last month.
The firm also recently advertised for a UK ETF sales manager and is currently planning to add five more ETF sales specialists to its team across Europe, Ignites Europe reported.
Robeco’s decision to launch ETFs also follows consecutive years of outflows from its mutual fund business, with investors pulling $10.3bn assets from its products in 2023 and $3.4bn in 2022.
This mirrors other cases of traditional asset managers looking to ETFs as another wrapper for their strategies, with the Jupiter Global Government Bond Active UCITS ETF currently awaiting regulatory approval after its parent company booked $2.8bn outflows from its mutual fund range in 2023.
