The company listed its first ETF if 2005 and runs approximately $9.5bn in ETF assets in the US. In total it has more than $67bn of AUM and supervision.
The firm’s US-based suite of AlphaDEX funds currently has $4.6bn in assets. They are designed to track the performance of a group of “enhanced” indices while adding alpha through the company’s proprietary stock selection methods.
“We believe this is the optimal time to expand the AlphaDEX family of ETFs outside of the US because of the strong opportunities that AlphaDEX provides investors that typically have only had access to market-cap weighted ETFs in Europe,” said Dan Lindquist, managing director of First Trust.
The indices are compiled using a proprietary methodology that ranks the stocks across several factors, such as value and growth, rather than market cap.
Eric Anderson, First Trust’s vice president, added: “These new ETFs are designed to provide investors with targeted equity market exposure whilst seeking to generate positive alpha relative to the broad-based passive index from which it selects its stocks. Every step in the process is driven by a transparent, repeatable quantitative process.”
The funds will be Ucits IV-compliant and are targeted for launch in the first quarter of this year in both Dublin and London, subject to regulatory approval.
