State Street re-brands its Exchange Traded Funds
State Street Global Advisors (SSgA), the investment management arm of State Street Corporation has incorporated its ASX-listed streetTRACKS series of exchange-traded funds (ETFs), under State Street’s new global ETF umbrella brand –SPDRs.
The re-branding is part of a global roll-out announced in January this year, and coincides with continued good growth in ETF trading among Australian retail investors. A key driver of this growth over the past year has been the increasing use of ETFs in innovative portfolio construction strategies and new structured products aimed at sophisticated retail investors.
According to recent figures released by the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX), ETF trading has nearly doubled in the past 12 months. The March 2007 Listed Managed Investment (LMI) Update showed average monthly trades had grown from 885 in March 2006 to 1,671 in March 2007.
According to SSgA in Australia, there had been a number of strategic developments in the Australian ETF market over the past twelve months that pointed towards continued growth in investor demand. In December SSgA announced that State Street ETFs had been included for the first time as the core component in an Aegis core and satellite model portfolio. SSgA is seeing that ETFs available through separately managed account platforms (SMAs), reflecting increased acceptance from financial planners and growing inclusion into self managed super funds. There are also a number of structured products available to investors that use ETFs as their base, such as protected equity loans and self-funding instalments.
SSgA believes that this re-branding will help to bring an increased focus on ETFs and the benefits they bring to investors. ETFs provide simple and low cost way for investors to gain exposure to the share market and SSgA is confirms its continued commitment to the Australian market in this way of re-branding.
Funds that began trading under new names from May 8, 2007, include:
Old Name: streetTRACKS S&P/ASX 50 Fund
New Name: SPDR S&P/ASX 50 Fund
Ticker: SFY
Old Name: streetTRACKS S&P/ASX 200 Fund
New Name: SPDR S&P/ASX 200 Fund
Ticker: STW
Old Name: streetTRACKS S&P/ASX 200 Listed Property Fund
New Name: SPDR S&P/ASX 200 Listed Property Fund
Ticker: SLF
18-May-2007