Russell launches ‘investment discipline’ ETF range

Russell launches ‘investment discipline’ ETF range

By Chris Flood

Published: May 19 2011 17:28 | Last updated: May 19 2011 17:28

Russell Investments marked its 75th anniversary as a financial services company by officially launching its exhange traded funds business with a family of “Investment Discipline” ETFs in New York on Thursday.
“Russell aims to provide ‘next-generation’ ETFs that expand beyond traditional market offerings,” said James Polisson, managing director of Russell’s global ETF business.
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The six new ETFs are designed to offer “focused, transparent and consistent exposure to US large-cap equities across six investment disciplines”.
The themes are aggressive growth, consistent growth, growth at a reasonable price, equity income, low price / earnings, and contrarian.
“We sought out the six most prevalent strategies that professional managers use to give investors access to actual investment approaches,” said Andy Arenberg, managing director of Russell’s global ETF distribution.
The indices the ETFs track are constructed from companies in the Russell 1000® Index.
Russell has built a dedicated ETF sales team and will be running advertisements on television and on the internet as well as in trade publications in a drive to promte its new venture.
Russell has also launched a new web-site with a range of analytical tools that allow investors to monitor how well the ETFs track their underlying benchmarks and how closely to net asset value they trade.
Mr Polisson said investors could expect further innovotive ETFs from Russell in the near future but would not be drawn on the details of any forthcoming product plans.
Russell already offers an ETF of ETFs (the Russell Equity ETF) which it acquired when it bought US One, a registered investment adviser and ETF provider, in January for an undisclosed sum.
A key factor behind the decision to buy US One was that Russell Investments also obtained a licence to launch active ETFs as part of the deal. This allowed Russell to neatly side-step the time consuming and potentially laborious process of seeking regulatory approval to launch active ETFs.
Mr Polisson said active ETFs were on Russell’s radar but declined to reveal any details about the company's plans in this area.
The Russell Investment Discipline ETFs all carry an annual management fee of 37 basis points

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