Ashburton Global 1200 Equity Fund of Funds ETF hits R1 billion under management
Ashburton Global 1200 Equity Fund of Funds ETF hits R1 billion under management
13 January 2021
The Ashburton Global 1200 Equity Fund of Funds ETF (ASHEQF) has reached the notable R1 billion assets under management milestone in just over three years since it launched.
The Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) captures 70% of the world’s market capitalisation via investing in seven regional ETFs as a way to keep costs low while ensuring tracking efficiency. These are the S&P500 (US), MSCI Europe, S&P TOPIX 150 (Japan), S&P/TSX 60 (Canada), S&P/ASX All Australian 50, S&P Asia 50 and S&P Latin America 40.
Vicki Tagg, Head of Indexation at Ashburton Investments, said “The fund is proving increasingly popular with South African investors as it provides cost effective geographic and hard currency diversification in one simple JSE listed investment that does not require the use of offshore allowances. We reduced its management fee last year which has also added to the appeal of the fund.”
She noted that the Ashburton Global 1200 Equity Fund of Funds ETF has been a strong performer because of its exposure to developed markets which continue to perform well thanks to world leading stocks like Apple (+85% in 2020), Amazon (+78% in 2020) and Netflix (60% in 2020), among others.
“Perhaps of particular interest this year will be the performance of Tesla which rose over 700% last year. It was added to the S&P 500 in December 2020 and therefore will now be a constituent holding of the Ashburton Global 1200 Equity Fund of Funds ETF.”
The Ashburton Global 1200 Equity Fund of Funds ETF provided a total return of 19.82% in 2020 compared to the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) All Share return of 4% (down 1.25% in US dollar terms.)
Currently the fund’s biggest sector weightings are technology (22%), healthcare (12.3%) and financials (13.3%). The biggest individual stock holding is Apple.
The fund is also unique in that it is the only global equity ETF in South Africa that offers developed and emerging market equity exposure in one ETF.