New Year Brings Flurry of Fund Launches

Several asset managers have kicked off 2023 with new strategies aimed at making a positive impact or with a focus on environmental, social, and governance-related issues.

DWS’s Xtrackers exchange-traded fund (ETF) unit is set to launch its 14^th ESG-themed fund in March, according to documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) late last month.

The new fund is the Xtrackers MSCI USA Climate Action Equity ETF, which will track an MSCI index of companies assessed as leaders in addressing climate change within their business models.

According to the registration document, the filing is expected to become effective from March 15, 2023.

Elsewhere, RBC Global Asset Management has launched an emerging markets fund with an ESG integration approach for US investors.

The fund, run by senior portfolio manager and head of emerging markets equities Philippe Langham, excludes companies listed in China. Langham said this was based on the disproportionate size of China’s market compared to other emerging economies as well as investors’ “mixed views on the country’s structural outlook”.

Meanwhile, US-based asset management boutique Engine No 1 has filed paperwork with the SEC for a new thematic ETF focused on resource scarcity.

The proposed Engine No 1 Transform Scarcity ETF will be actively managed and invest globally, aiming to back companies “creating value through scarce resource transformation” by producing or contributing to sustainable alternatives.

Engine No 1 grabbed headlines in 2021 when it successfully campaigned to place independent directors on the board of oil and gas giant ExxonMobil in an effort to improve the company’s environmental approach.

Separately, ETF provider Global X has also filed regulatory documents for a planned Global X Carbon Credits Strategy ETF. The fund would track the ICE Global Carbon Futures Index, which provides exposure to actively traded carbon credit futures.