State Street Global Advisors (SSGA), the asset management arm of State Street Corporation, has launched the SPDR Morningstar Multi Asset Global Infrastructure Ucits ETF.
The firm says the new fund is the world’s first infrastructure exchange-traded fund (ETF) to offer investors combined exposure to both infrastructure equities and bonds.
The ETF is listed on the Deutsche Börse Xetra and tracks the Morningstar Global Multi-Asset Infrastructure Index, allowing investors access to the publicly available infrastructure universe in one trade.
The launch follows the release of SSGA research showing that 35% of intermediaries and 33% of institutional investors plan to increase their investment in infrastructure, as soon as the second quarter of 2015.
The survey of 120 intermediary and institutional investors across Europe also found that 21% of intermediary investors and 20% of institutional investors who already invest in, or plan to invest in infrastructure, consider using mutual funds or ETFs.
Liquidty and the size of investment required were both highlighted in the findings as issues that investors in infrastructure feel might inhibit their access to the asset class.
Commenting on the launch and the survey results, Alexis Marinof, head of SPDR ETFs for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, says: “Infrastructure investment has a number of key benefits: it has low correlation with traditional assets, provides access to long-duration and inflation linked assets and is less sensitive to business cycles.”
SPDR ETFs manages more than $466 billion (€439.6 billion) in over 225 ETFs worldwide, as of December 31, 2014.
©2015 funds europe
