By Townhall Chicago News Staff
Chicago-based William Blair Investment Management on Thursday launched its first two exchange-traded funds, expanding the firm’s international and emerging markets expertise into the growing active ETF market.
The two new actively managed ETFs are the William Blair Emerging Markets Equity ETF, trading under the ticker WBEM, and the William Blair International Equity ETF, trading as WBIE. Both are expected to trade on the New York Stock Exchange, according to a news release from the firm.
The launch marks a strategic milestone for one of Chicago’s oldest financial firms, which was founded in 1935 and remains 100 percent employee-owned.
“Investors are increasingly building portfolios with ETFs, and they want to access active strategies in the structure they prefer,” Bob Kendall, global head of William Blair Investment Management, said in the release. “These active ETFs are an evolution in how clients can access capabilities we have offered for decades. They reflect our belief that investors should have flexibility in how they access our investment expertise.”
William Blair has more than three decades of experience investing outside the United States, having launched its first international equity fund in 1992 and managed emerging markets equity portfolios since 1996. As of June 30, the firm managed $19.8 billion in emerging markets equities and $18.5 billion in international equities, according to the release.
The two new funds rely on fundamental research and active stock selection to identify companies with attractive quality and growth characteristics across international and emerging markets.
“Each strategy is built with the investor in mind, and the role of each strategy in a portfolio,” Jay Lisowski, global head of product strategy and development at William Blair Investment Management, said in the release. “The ETF wrapper adds increased tax efficiency, intraday liquidity, and transparency on top of an active approach investors already know.”
The WBIE fund carries a net expense ratio of 0.55 percent and uses the MSCI All Country World ex-USA Index as its benchmark. Its inception date is Oct. 15, according to fund documents on the firm’s website.
William Blair said it intends to expand its ETF platform over time, building on capabilities spanning U.S. equities, global equities and emerging fixed income.
The launch comes as the broader asset management industry has seen a surge in actively managed ETFs in recent years. A William Blair survey released earlier in October found that registered investment advisors increasingly view international and emerging markets exposure as essential to client portfolios and prefer active ETFs to access those markets.
William Blair operates in more than 30 offices worldwide and provides advisory services across investment banking, investment management and private wealth management.
