Fund Management
BlackRock Grabbed Almost A Third Of ETF Market Flow In 2014
US-listed asset management giant BlackRock said that its iShares exchange traded funds business has led the global ETF sector by grabbing 31 per cent of $330.7 billion in global market flows in these vehicles.
US-listed asset management giant BlackRock said that its iShares exchange traded funds business has led the global ETF sector by grabbing 31 per cent of $330.7 billion ($102.8 billlion) in global market flows in these vehicles over the past 12 months.
While full-year industry figures have not yet been made available, data issued in the first week of December shows that 2014 has undoubtedly been the year of exchange-traded funds and exchange-traded products, with the global industry logging a record-breaking $2.76 trillion in assets (source: ETFGI).
BlackRock said its growth in the sector was driven by the iShares US and European product lines. The iShares US product line led the way with a record $82.8 billion of new assets in 2014, surpassing the previous record for US iShares ETFs of $62.0 billion in 2012. In Europe, the business captured $20.3 billion in net new flows.
ETFs are typically open-ended, index-based funds which can be bought and sold like ordinary shares on a stock exchange. They offer exposure across developed, emerging and frontier markets, equities, fixed income and commodities. ETPs, meanwhile, are similar to ETFs in the way they trade and settle but do not use an open-end fund structure.
These vehicles have boomed in recent years on the back of investor demand for relatively cheap ways to track market indices, while they are also favoured as ways to get exposure to otherwise hard-to-enter sectors, or adjust asset allocation exposures rapidly. There have been some concerns in recent years, however, that some ETFs, such as “synthetic” structures where returns are linked to swap-like arrangements, carry counterparty risks and are also overly complex.
Besides iShares, other major players in the ETF/ETP sector include firms such as Societe Generale, through its Lyxor asset manager arm; Powershares; Deutsche Bank and Source.
