Fidelity Australia managing director Lawrence Hanson has announced the firm’s intention to launch multiple strategies as active ETFs.
This would expand the firm’s existing active ETF range by up to seven funds.
The funds in question are Fidelity India, Fidelity Hedged Global Equities, Fidelity Global Future Leaders, Fidelity Global Equities, Fidelity China, Fidelity Australian Opportunities and Fidelity Australian Equities.
Hanson said: “Fidelity is committed to making investing with us as easy as possible. Investors enjoy the ease of investing and transacting through ETFs, and we’re aiming to offer more of our best-in-class strategies through this vehicle over the year.
“We will be able to provide more detail on these launches in due course.”
The asset manager currently has two active ETFs available in Australia: the $221 million Fidelity Global Emerging Markets Fund (Managed Fund) and the $111 million Fidelity Global Demographics Fund (Managed Fund).
A spokesperson confirmed Fidelity issued unitholder meeting notifications on 18 April 2024 seeking the approval of unitholders to modify the constitutions of a number of its managed funds to enable listing of a class of units on either the ASX or Cboe at some point in the future.
“Any funds selected in the future will require unitholder approval, with at least 75 per cent of unitholders required to vote in favour. The vote does not mean that all funds approved will be launched as ETFs immediately but provides the option of doing so at some stage in the future,” they said.
More details on any launches will be made available at the conclusion of the unitholder voting period.
Earlier this year, Money Management wrote about how financial advisers view active ETFs as a cost-effective investment solution as advice firms look to manage costs and service more clients.
Australia has seen a range of new active ETFs hit the market, with the category accounting for 55 per cent of new fund launches in 2023, according to Global X ETFs.
