Close Close
Sign In
Newsletters
Popular Financial Topics Discover relevant content from across the suite of ALM legal publications From the Industry More content from ThinkAdvisor and select sponsors Investment Advisor Issue Gallery Read digital editions of Investment Advisor Magazine Tax Facts Get clear, current, and reliable answers to pressing tax questions
Luminaries Awards
Podcast Center Video Center Webcasts Resource Center Events
About ThinkAdvisor Contact Us Advertise With Us Asset & Logo Licensing Sitemap Terms of Service Privacy Policy Copyright © 2024 ALM Global, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
ThinkAdvisor

Portfolio > Portfolio Construction

Lazard Adds U.S. Sustainable Equity Portfolio: Portfolio Products

By Jeff Berman

X
Your article was successfully shared with the contacts you provided.

Lazard Asset Management launched the Lazard US Sustainable Equity Portfolio, with the ticker symbols SUSTX (institutional, with a net expense ratio of .75%) and SUSLX (retail, 1.00%).

The new fund seeks to outperform the S&P 500 Index and is investing in U.S.-listed companies with a market capitalization greater than $1 billion, the firm said. It is “relatively concentrated and normally will hold between 40 and 50 positions,” according to the company.

In addition to leveraging the environmental, social and governance-integrated fundamental research conducted by Lazard’s sector-focused research analysts, the portfolio’s management team is looking to invest in businesses that “generate high levels of financial productivity, while considering the alignment of each company’s products, services, and operations with a more sustainable world,” it said.

“We have seen tremendous interest from clients for investment solutions that are truly rooted in sustainability,” according to Ronald Temple, head of US Equity at Lazard. “Understanding what is material to each company gives us an edge in assessing sustainability and security selection more broadly.”

Envestnet Gets Franklin Templeton Model Portfolios

Franklin Templeton’s suite of 12 outcome model portfolios have been added to Envestnet’s platform.

The dozen outcome model portfolios include five strategies that prioritize generating income, either as primary or as part of a total return objective (Income, Tax-Advantaged Income, Growth & Income, Growth & Enhanced Income and Tax-Advantaged Growth & Income); four strategies that seek capital appreciation (Conservative Growth, Moderate Growth, Growth and Equity Growth); two strategies aimed at protecting assets from meaningful loss (Stability and Tax-Advantaged Stability); and one strategy geared toward protecting assets in a rising interest rate environment (Rising Rate Defense).

Each portfolio is aligned with specific intended outcomes and will hold about 5-12 underlying mutual funds and exchange-traded funds, Franklin Templeton said. The three tax-advantaged portfolios are offered as options to clients with high tax sensitivities, it noted.

Ed Perks, chief investment officer of Franklin Templeton Multi-Asset Solutions and portfolio manager of Franklin Income Fund since 2002, heads the 60-plus member team that manages the models now available via the Envestnet platform.

SoFi 50 ETF Relaunched

The SoFi 50 ETF has been relaunched on the NYSE Arca and is now indexed to reflect the most popular equities among SoFi members, SoFi said.

The updated fund has retained the same ticker SFYF on the NYSE Arca, with a net expense ratio of 0.29%. The ETF now tracks the performance, before fees and expenses, of the SoFi Social 50 Index, a portfolio of the 50 most-widely-held U.S.-listed equity securities in SoFi members’ self-directed brokerage accounts with SoFi Invest, the company said.

The index is weighted by aggregate holdings within SoFi member accounts and will be rebalanced on a monthly basis, it noted.

SoFi has continued to partner with Tidal ETF Services for the trust, strategy, administrative and operational aspects of the fund, SoFi added.

The reindexing of the SFYF ETF follows the recent extension of fee waivers on the SoFi Select 500 (SFY) and SoFi Next 500 (SFYX) funds, which will retain a zero expense ratio for at least another year, through June 30, 2021, the company said. All of SoFi’s ETFs are available through SoFi Invest, as well as through any other brokerage account, it pointed out.

Hamilton Lane Closes Impact Fund

Hamilton Lane has closed its new Impact Fund, a private equity fund with total capital commitments of more than $95 million.

The fund is “designed to generate both attractive investment returns and positive social and environmental impact” and will invest in businesses worldwide via “direct investments and primary or secondary investments, with a focus on health and wellness, energy and environment, community development, and financial empowerment,” the firm said.

“Leveraging Hamilton Lane’s broad network and robust platform of deal flow” and general partner relationships, the fund “will seek investments across diversified private markets strategies—including buyout, growth, venture and real assets—that generate meaningful and measurable impact,” it said.

The fund will focus mainly on investments in the developed markets, with the opportunity to impact the emerging markets through companies with global operations, the company said. Its  investor base is made up of a diverse mix of limited partners, including large private pension funds, financial institutions, high-net-worth individuals, endowments and other institutions, it noted.

New York Life Introduces MainStay ETF Suite

New from New York Life Investments is the MainStay ETF Allocation Suite, a collection of five target risk-based asset allocation funds invested in unaffiliated passive ETFs.

“Recent market volatility has underscored the critical importance of well-diversified and risk-oriented asset allocation strategies that offer a range of solutions and investment objectives from income preservation to long-term capital growth,” according to Kirk Lehneis, the firm’s chief operating officer and president of MainStay Funds.

The new allocation suite “provides clients with a full range of relatively low-cost solutions tailored to different risk tolerances, harnessing our multi-asset expertise to navigate the rapidly changing investment environment,” he said in a statement.

The MainStay ETF Allocation Suite includes five strategies trading on the Nasdaq: the Mainstay Defensive ETF Allocation Fund (MDNAX); Mainstay Conservative ETF Allocation Fund (MNEAX); Mainstay Moderate ETF Allocation Fund (MDAAX); Mainstay Growth ETF Allocation Fund (MOEAX); and Mainstay Equity ETF Allocation Fund (MWFAX). Net expense ratios are 0.94% for all but the Growth ETF, which is 0.96%, plus a sales charge of 2%-3% for the A shares, which are listed here. Institutional shares have expense ratios of 0.69% for all but the Growth ETF, which is 0.71%, and no sales charge but require a minimum investment of $1 million.

Each strategy seeks to achieve its investment objective by leveraging fundamental and quantitative approaches to invest primarily in third-party fixed income and equity passive ETFs, the firm said. In accordance with its risk profile, each fund offers a distinctly different allocation to underlying U.S. equity, international equity and/or fixed income ETFs.

AllianzIM Launches July Series ETFs

Allianz Investment Management’s AllianzIM U.S. Large Cap Buffer10 Jul ETF (AZAL) and AllianzIM U.S. Large Cap Buffer20 Jul ETF (AZBL) started trading on the NYSE Arca, each with a 0.74% net expense ratio.

AllianzIM Buffered Outcome ETFs were “designed to expand the risk management strategies available to investors as prevailing market dynamics and declining appetite for risk create new challenges,” the company said.

The AllianzIM ETFs seek to match the returns of the S&P 500 Price Return Index up to a stated cap (15.36% for AZAL and 8.06% for AZBL), while providing downside risk mitigation through a buffer (9.26% for AZAL and 19.26% for AZBL) against the first 10% and 20% of S&P 500 Price Return Index losses over the 12-month outcome period, it noted.

TrueMark Rolls Out First TrueShares Structured Outcome ETF

Asset manager TrueMark Investments launched the TrueShares Structured Outcome (July) ETF (JULZ, with a net expense ratio of 0.79%), the first ETF in its new TrueShares structured outcome product suite, on the Chicago Board Options Exchange.

The new ETF is sub-advised by SpiderRock Advisors and seeks to provide investors with structured outcome exposure to the S&P 500 Price Index, and offers a built-in downside buffer with uncapped upside participation, TrueMark said.

JULZ is just the first of 12 monthly series in the TrueShares Structured Outcome ETF suite. Each fund will roll over at the end of a year-long term, at which point the downside buffer and upside participation reset based on current pricing for the options used by the strategy for each respective ETF, TrueMark said.

The fund seeks to provide investors with returns (before fees and expenses) that track the S&P 500 Price Index, while seeking to provide a buffer of 8-12% on that index’s losses over the fund’s one-year investment period, it pointed out. “In practice, the fund adviser will target the buffer at 10% of index declines over the investment period following the first day of trading while also allowing for uncapped upside participation,” it added.

— Check out last week’s portfolio product roundup here: UBS Expands SMAs to Third-Party Asset Managers: Portfolio Products

Jeff Berman

NOT FOR REPRINT

© 2024 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.