Amundi on Monday announced the expansion of its global equities offering with the launch of the Amundi Prime All Country World Ucits ETF, now listed on Xetra. The Paris-headquartered firm said its new fund aims to offer investors cost-efficient, highly-diversified equity exposure across both developed and emerging markets, boasting the lowest management fees for an all-country ETF on the European market at 0.07%.
The introduction of the Amundi Prime All Country World Ucits ETF comes at a time when global equities are seen as a fundamental component of portfolio allocation, the firm said. Over the last five years, global equity Ucits ETFs have seen an average of more than 30 billion euro per year in net new assets, with over 11 billion euro recorded year-to-date, indicating a strong and consistent interest in this asset class among investors.
“Our aim is to be the first partner of choice for ETF investors by continuing to provide the essential building blocks for diversified asset allocation,” said Benoit Sorel, head of Amundi ETF, Indexing & Smart Beta, in a press release. “This new ETF bolsters our global equities range, covering a wide spectrum of products from the lowest-cost ETFs to ESG and climate solutions, catering for every investor type and need.”
Domiciled in Ireland
The new Amundi fund is domiciled in Ireland, not Luxembourg. Ireland has become widely recognised as the leading hub for Ucits ETFs, especially those that have exposure to US equities. A US-Irish tax treaty means the dividends of US companies in the ETF are taxed at 15%, as opposed to 30% in Luxembourg. Amundi in the recent year has migrated a number of its ETFs from Luxembourg to Ireland. Some of its mutual funds were first converted from a traditional mutual fund into an ETF before they were moved to Ireland.
Amundi, Europe’s biggest asset manager with some 2,000 billion euro in assets under management, said its newest Ucits ETF was designed in partnership with German index provider Solactive.