Legal & General Investment Management (LGIM) has launched a global equity fund based on ETFs targeting eight investment themes.
The Legal & General Thematic fund provides UK investors with exposure to the company’s artificial intelligence, robotics and automation, cyber security, battery value chain, clean water, e-commerce logistics, healthcare breakthrough and pharma breakthrough themes within one investment vehicle.
Using its existing ETFs as building blocks, the fund targets innovation and secular growth sectors with its combined basket of more than 400 individual equities.
Benchmarked against the MSCI World Total Return Net index, the fund will be managed by Dave Barron, head of index equity and smart beta at LGIM.
LGIM said a quantitative allocation model will be applied to the product to maximise diversification and maintain strong volatility and returns profiles within its portfolio.
James Crossley (pictured), head of UK retail sales at LGIM, commented: “Thematic investing has risen in popularity in recent years, thanks to its ability to capitalise on the structural and foundational changes shaping our society.
“By providing a single point of entry to a diversified universe of companies, the fund offers investors access to a broad range of growth opportunities.”
Aanand Venkatramanan, head of ETF investment strategies at LGIM, added: “The fund complements the success of LGIM’s ETF and thematic businesses, offering clients simple access to diversified themes, which traditionally have been difficult to capture in a single product.”
The new fund launch comes after a bumper start to the year for European thematic ETFs, in which the product class booked their best quarter on record. Despite frothy stock valuations taking a hit in March, assets in Europe-listed thematics surged during Q1, up by 26.7% from €23.2bn to €29.4bn.
