Robeco joins ranks of active managers entering ETF space

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Robeco has become the latest active asset manager to develop an exchange traded fund platform, poaching Fidelity International’s ETFs head for its new business line.

The Dutch fund house owned by Japan’s Orix Corporation has announced that Nick King will lead its ETF market entry as head of ETFs from October.

King spent more than eight years as Fidelity’s ETF head and previously worked for BlackRock.

Robeco said that it planned to launch its first ETF in the second half of 2024.

ETFs “have been under consideration” at the €179bn asset manager “for a while” owing to “their growing popularity and versatility in the investment landscape”, Robeco said.

It said it was constantly seeking ways to expand the delivery of its investment strategies and innovate. “ETFs are one such opportunity to achieve both.”

Robeco also said that “given their advantages as compared to mutual funds” it expected ETFs to become a preferred vehicle for investors in the long run.

It noted that offering both mutual funds and ETFs would position it for “long-term competitiveness” and increase its ability to serve clients.

The manager’s new ETF platform will cover a wide range of asset classes such as equities, bonds and multi-asset.

The fund house said it would “likely also use the ETFs to package Robeco indices”.

“Exact strategies to be wrapped are still to be determined. However, the focus is that the ETFs will wrap Robeco intellectual property in line with our key strengths of sustainability, quant investing, thematics, credits and emerging markets,” Robeco added.

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