The latest news in investment offerings, financial products and other services relative to wealth advisors and their clients.

BlackRock
The iShares Bitcoin exchange-traded product was listed on the London Stock Exchange yesterday. The securities of the ETP are 100 per cent physically backed by bitcoin held directly through Coinbase, BlackRock said yesterday. 

The ETP shifts responsibility of storing the underlying bitcoin from the individual holder to the ETP issuer, it said. 

A research report from BlackRock said that 21 per cent more UK adults will invest in crypto for the first time in the next 12 years.

Coinbase’s custody system combines physical security, multiparty computation, and process controls to secure private keys and client assets. For the iShares Bitcoin ETP, Coinbase transfers bitcoin in the trading wallet into segregated, offline, cold storage wallets by the end of each day.

Nuveen
Nuveen, a New York-headquartered global asset manager with $1.3 trillion in assets under management, has unlocked access to its $300 billion alternatives platform with the introduction of two in-demand private market strategies to qualified individual investors in Europe and Asia. 

The strategies will be available through select intermediary platforms, providing exposure to Nuveen’s $142 billion real estate and $80 billion private credit platforms respectively. The global cities real estate strategy invests in commercial real estate properties and aims to provide investors with income and growth from the world's most dynamic cities. 

The European private credit direct lending strategy in collaboration with Arcmont Asset Management, a European private debt asset management firm, seeks to capitalise on a consolidating lending market and bank retrenchment by sourcing high-quality mid-market opportunities across a diverse and underpenetrated region.

"These launches directly address the surging appetite of individual investors for private markets strategies, which is a trend we’re seeing globally," said Jeff Carlin, head of global wealth advisory services at Nuveen. “They come at a transformative moment when the wealth management industry is fundamentally reimagining portfolio construction – incorporating alternatives that could offer investors an opportunity to enhance resilience and pursue compelling risk-adjusted returns amid today's unprecedented market complexity.”

The expansion builds upon Nuveen's position in alternative investments. In addition to these two strategies, Nuveen has previously made exposure to farmland and agricultural assets, collaterialised loan obligations and US middle market private capital available to qualified individual wealth investors.

Bitwise
Bitwise, a crypto specialist asset manager with over $15 billion in client assets, will be lowering the fees for its Bitwise Core Bitcoin ETP to 5 basis points (0.05 per cent), as it put the product and three other crypto exchange traded products (ETPs) on the retail segment of the London Stock Exchange (LSE) on 21 October.

This is the first time UK retail investors can gain exposure to bitcoin and Ethereum through ETPs listed on a UK recognised investment exchange (RIE). This coincides with the Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA) decision to lift its restrictions on retail access to crypto ETPs.

The launch of the four products gives retail investors access to the four bitcoin and Ethereum ETPs which Bitwise listed on the LSE in April. They are the Bitwise Core Bitcoin ETP (BTC1, ISIN: DE000A4AER62), the Bitwise Physical Bitcoin ETP (BTCE, ISIN: DE000A27Z304), the Bitwise Ethereum Staking ETP (ET32, ISIN: DE000A3G90G9) and the Bitwise Physical Ethereum ETP (ZETH, ISIN: DE000A3GMKD7). Under the FCA’s guidance, UK retail investors can access crypto ETPs referencing Bitcoin and Ethereum only, and only when traded on FCA-recognised exchanges such as the LSE.

Bitwise will reduce the total expense ratio (TER) of BTC1 to 0.05 per cent from 0.20 per cent for six months, and then until further notice, making it a cost-efficient member of the company’s suite of institutional-grade crypto ETPs, benefiting new and existing investors in this evolving market