ETF provider VanEck has appointed three to its Sydney team, including a former M&A specialist.
The appointments will bolster the firm’s investment and client coverage capabilities, it said.
In the investment and capital markets team, it has appointed Anna Wu from Macquarie Group as a senior associate, cross-asset investment research. She previously spent two years at Macquarie as an investment associate and three years at PwC.
In its client services team, VanEck has created two new roles: Claudia Catalanotto has been appointed as a client solutions executive and Matthew Sullivan has joined as a business development associate.
Catalanotto is an internal promotion, having originally joined VanEck in 2020 as a business development associate, while Sullivan joins from EY where he was a senior consultant in transactions and corporate finance.
VanEck said Sullivan will focus on the firm’s client base in NSW, Western Australia and Victoria.
Arian Neiron, VanEck CEO and managing director, Asia Pacific, said: “Expanding the team is indicative of our commitment to being at the forefront of investment innovation, and ensuring our capabilities, products, services and insights remain best in class for Australian investors.
“The Australian ETF industry experienced record net flows last year, and we anticipate this record will be surpassed in 2025 with wealth managers increasingly adopting ETFs as the preferred building blocks for portfolio construction.”
According to ETF flow data, VanEck rose by 106 per cent from $2.9 billion to $6 billion in net inflows during 2024. This put the fund house in fourth place for annual inflows behind Vanguard, Betashares and iShares.
It said international equity ETFs had been the “clear frontrunner” in terms of where money was being allocated, with its VanEck MSCI International Quality ETF gaining $1.5 billion and VanEck MSCI International Small Companies Quality ETF gaining $912 million.
Research from the VanEck Australian Investor Survey 2024, which canvassed over 3,500 individual investors, discovered that more Australians than ever are eyeing out overseas investments to expand their portfolio.
Over three-quarters (77 per cent) of Australian investors are planning to invest in international equity ETFs in the next 12 months, representing a 27 per cent rise compared to last year.
Meanwhile, approximately 70 per cent are looking at their home soil for ETF investment opportunities. This is the first time that international equities have overtaken Australian equities, VanEck noted.
