Perpetual has shared it is keen to expand its active ETFs, especially in the US, as it resets its asset management distribution strategy.
The firm has announced a four-part strategy to improve its asset management, and one of these is resetting its distribution strategy. This is with the aim of improving client engagement and targeted initiatives to retain core investments strategies.
Within this, a focus is increasing capabilities and the product set for the intermediary market in the US, including developing a holistic ETF strategy.
Commenting further on a results webinar, chief executive Bernard Reilly, said: “If you look at the US market then 10 per cent of its ETF market is in active ETFs. It is growing at a very fast pace.
“So this is an opportunity for us to repackage some of our existing strategies as an active ETF. We have an intermediary distribution function which has grown out over a number of years, and we want to be able to mobilise these ETF structures through that distribution channel.”
According to Morningstar, some 603 active ETFs came to the market in the US during 2024, far outpacing their index counterparts.
Commenting on the “prune to grow” part of the distribution strategy, Reilly said work is underway on refining its product range and closing unpopular funds.
Reilly said: “We’ve undertaken some pruning work already on strategies that have been underperforming or are subscale and losing money. Those that are subscale haven’t attracted interest in the market to grow, so that’s why we would close those.
“On the performance side, poor performance makes it difficult to sell a strategy. We’ve done some of this already in the first half. It’s been a combination of reducing funds and merging funds.
“If a strategy has performed poorly and is subscale, you will struggle to sell that in the future so you need to close that down. If it is poorly performing and is at scale, you focus on retaining the assets and turning the strategy around.”
