Swiss & Global Offers Active ETFs On SIX Swiss Exchange

Stephen Little

2 April 2014

Swiss & Global has added 11 exchange-traded funds to the SIX Swiss Exchange to become the first provider to list actively-managed funds on the Zurich-based exchange.

The 11 ETFs are part of the Julius Baer fund range and were listed on the Deutsche Boerse in Frankfurt on 29 June 2012.

The four UCITS-compliant funds offer exposure to world, emerging markets, European and Asian equities and each Julius Baer Smart Equity UCITS ETF holds up to 200 positions, Swiss & Global said in a statement.

The funds are fully invested in equities and do not use derivatives like swaps, futures or options. Securities lending and borrowing is not allowed, therefore investors are not exposed to any issuer or counter-party risk.

The ETFs use a systematic approach to invest in selected equities from their respective MSCI benchmarks, with each position subject to a qualitative check before implementation.

The funds aim to outperform their relevant passive benchmarks by combining two proprietary systematic strategies in one portfolio to effectively exploit price trends and valuation anomalies:

“The aim of our active strategy is to avoid and at the same time exploit the typical human errors in the investment process. These include temporary overreactions and the strong herd instinct of many investors. We select the stocks in a very systematic way based on strict rules that we have developed over a number of years. In addition, every position is also subject to a qualitative check by an experienced portfolio manager before implementation,” said Stefan Fröhlich, lead fund manager of the ETFs at Swiss & Global.

The range is available to retail and institutional clients in Switzerland, Germany, the UK, Austria, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, France and Spain.