Amundi has launched two new ESG products targeting the global aggregate bond market and Asia equity, ETF Stream can reveal.
The Amundi Global AGG SRI UCITS ETF (8OUU) and the Amundi MSCI AC Far East Ex Japan ESG Leaders Select UCITS ETF (ACUU) are both listed on Deutsche Boerse with total expense ratios (TERs) of 0.14% and 0.25%, respectively.
8OUU tracks the Bloomberg MSCI Global Aggregate 500MM ex Securitised Sustainable SRI Neutral index giving investors access to 12,000 investment grade corporate and government bonds across 1,200 issuers.
It excludes issuers involved in controversial business practices such as alcohol, tobacco, gambling, adult entertainment, GMO, nuclear power, military weapons, civilian firearms and thermal coal.
Furthermore, it will select 80% of the bonds with the highest ESG score taken from the Bloomberg MSCI Global Aggregate 500MM ex Securitised index.
Taking on the Global Aggregate Bond index ‘beast’
Currently, BlackRock and DWS are the only two issuers that offer exposure to the global aggregate bond index due to its sheer size and the issuer's ability to track it efficiently. In November, DWS announced plans to switch the index to one that tracks ESG metrics due to low demand.
Meanwhile, ACUU tracks the MSCI All Country Far East ex Japan ESG Leaders Select 5% Issuer Capped index, offering exposure to two developed markets – Hong Kong and Singapore – and seven emerging markets comprising China, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines and Taiwan.
Despite covering roughly 400 stocks, China dominates the index with a weighting of 44.4%, followed by Taiwan (20.7%), Hong Kong (10%) and South Korea (9.7%), at the end of March.
The ETF uses a negative screening and a best-in-class selection of the top 50% of companies with the highest ESG scores taken from the parent index.
Both ETFs are labelled Article 8 under the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR).
Matthieu Guignard (pictured), global head of product development and capital markets at Amundi, said: “We are delighted to further extend our Amundi ETF responsible range with these two new products.
“As investors are increasingly looking for new tools allowing them to build sustainable portfolios for all asset classes, we are committed to providing them with a large range of high quality, robust and cost-efficient ESG ETFs”.
It comes as Amundi continues to green up its product range. Last month, the group shifted over €13bn of assets to track Paris Aligned Benchmarks (PAB) and Climate Transition Benchmark (CTB) indices.
Amundi successfully extended its lead over DWS in the European ETF issuer rankings in Q1 following its €825m acquisition of Lyxor, booking an impressive €9.2bn inflows in the first quarter.
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