Invesco becomes the second issuer to shut its Russia ETF after BlackRock announced it would delist its Russia and Eastern Europe strategies last month.
Six days into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the asset manager halted creations and redemptions of the $35m Invesco RDX UCITS ETF (RDXS) after Weiner Boerse suspended the RDX USD index underlying the product.
Three weeks later, Invesco said it would waive the 0.65% total expense ratio (TER) attached to RDXS from 2 March onwards, bearing any costs associated with maintaining the fund.
Weiner Boerse then decided it would discontinue RDXS’s benchmark from 17 May, followed by the ETF’s swap counterparties, saying they would close its underlying swaps as they no longer had a valid reference.
After consulting with RDXS’s fund manager, Assenagon Asset Management, Invesco announced on Tuesday it would be “impracticable” for the fund to continue operating. As such, shares will be redeemed and the ETF will be terminated as of 21 June.
In its statement, the issuer said its directors have the discretion to terminate the fund if there are changes to the business, economic or political situation that would have material adverse consequences and were against the interests of shareholders.
“The directors believe such circumstances have now arisen,” it said.
As with the iShares MSCI Eastern Europe Capped UCITS ETF (IEER) and the iShares MSCI Russia ADR/GDR UCITS ETF (CSRU) which also face deletion, RDXS investors will not be able to exit their positions prior to the ETF’s termination date as secondary market trading remains suspended.
Questions will now be asked of DWS, HSBC Asset Management and Amundi, as to whether they should pull the plug on their Russia products.
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