AMP exits ETFs, pushes investors to active versions
AMP has closed its three exchange traded funds (ETFs) run in partnership with BetaShares as the funds reached only $55 million in assets under management after four years.
In a notice to the Australian Securities Exchange, AMP said it would wind its AMP Global Infrastructure Securities, AMP Capital Global Property Securities and AMP Capital Dynamic Markets.
The funds were launched in partnership with BetaShares in 2016 and ran by AMP Capital but had “not achieved sufficient scale since inception”, the firm said. Together, the three funds totalled just $55 million with the largest being the infrastructure ETF at $28 million.
At the time of the launch in 2016, BetaShares and AMP Capital said they had expected the funds to “have wide appeal, particularly among self-managed super fund trustees and self-directed investors”.
AMP suggested investors who still wanted exposure could consider the non-listed versions of similar strategies which were significantly larger.
AMP Capital Global Infrastructure Securities Hedged was $1.7 billion while the unhedged version was $1.2 billion, both launched in 2010. The multi-asset AMP Capital Dynamic Markets fund was $342 million while the AMP Capital Global Property Securities fund was $834 million.
However, while they were larger in asset size, all four funds had underperformed their sectors in performance terms, according to FE Analytics.
The AMP Capital Dynamic Markets fund reported the largest underperformance with losses of 17.9% versus losses of just 1.8% by the mixed asset-flexible sector over one year to 30 September, 2020.
The AMP Capital Global Property Securities fund had lost 15% versus losses by the global property sector of 14.2%.
In the infrastructure space, the infrastructure sector had lost 11.8% while the unhedged fund had lost 16% and the hedged version had lost 14.4% over the year to 31 October, 2020.
AUTHOR
Laura Dew
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