Marshall Wace, the large European hedge fund firm, plans to launch a publicly listed exchange-traded fund that tracks performance of its flagship TOPS fund strategy.

MW TOPS Global Alpha, the product’s name, will track the performance of the MW TOPS Global Alpha IndexSM, which itself will be based on a basket of Marshall Wace’s globally-diversified TOPS investment strategies, the firm said in a statement today.

The announcement had been expected – the Financial Times said the move was part of an effort by Marshall Wace to recover after suffering heavy client redemptions last year.

In its statement, the firm said the basket of its strategies consist of at least six diversified regional TOPS subcomponents comprising predominantly large-cap equities and equity-related securities in the major global equity indices.

“The underlying holdings are extremely liquid and easy to price. This makes them especially well-suited to the liquidity requirements of an ETF,” it said.

The ETF will be listed and tradeable on the London Stock Exchange and the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. Marketing for the product starts from today.

Exchange traded funds, which track the performance of market indices without the investor having to hold the underlying components of such indices, have become increasingly exotic, tracking not just equities and fixed income but also commodities, private equity, infrastructure, and measures of hedge fund returns.