London
BlackRock’s ESG rollout begins
BlackRock’s much-anticipated ESG rollout is beginning in London in the coming weeks. As part of its reworked ETF offering, the company will punch up corporate baddies and remove them from a series of its plain vanilla ETFs.
- iShares MSCI World ESG Screened UCITS ETF (SAWD, SDWD) – 0.20% TER
- iShares MSCI Japan ESG Screened UCITS ETF (SAJP, SDJP) – 0.20% TER
- iShares MSCI EM IMI ESG Screened UCITS ETF (SAEM, SEDM) – 0.18% TER
The funds will track MSCI indexes – as almost all of BlackRock’s ETFs do – and tap into the specialist ESG niche that MSCI has built for itself. The screens will remove companies in tobacco, weapons, nuclear power, fossil fuels as well as those that flunk the UN Global Compact. (Index methodology handbook here). Europe and European monetary union products are on their way, and will list at a later point in the year.
Analysis – What’s the difference between ESG and SRI?
Today’s puzzle: what is the difference between ESG and SRI? The reason we ask is BlackRock already has a line of “SRI” ETFs listed in London (SUWS, IESE, SUSM, SUAS). So why are they listing ESG as well as SRI funds? (Big client request them?)
Fingering through the index handbook for the old SRI funds, it looks the difference is the SRI funds are more hardcore. The ESG funds exclude only the items discussed above. But the SRI funds exclude those and more including: alcohol, porn, gambling and GMO.
We are glad today’s new “ESG” funds allow alcohol to be included. It’s Friday, after all.
Taiwan
Capital Securities lists fixed income ETFs
Medium-sized Taiwanese provider Capital Securities is listing three new fixed income ETFs for long dated securities. They are:
- Capital Ice 15+ Year AAA-AA US Corporate ETF
- Capital Ice 15+ Year US Emerging Markets External Sovereign Debt ETF
- Capital Ice 15+ Year US Utility ETF
Beyond the fund’s names, we cannot discern quite what they do. For those fluent in Mandarin, the website is here.