BlackRock (NYSE: BLK), the world’s largest asset manager, believes the European exchange traded fund market is stagnating without enough competition to promote growth.
“One player [BlackRock] cannot build the entire ETF market in Europe alone,” Mark Wiedman, global head of iShares at BlackRock, said in a Financial Times article.
BlackRock’s iShares ETFs make up almost half of the assets held in European-listed ETFs, up from under a third at the end of 2010. According to BlackRock, Europe-listed iShares ETFs held $194.2 billion in assets under management in October while Europe ETF assets totaled $413 billion. Globally, iShares has $900.4 billion in assets, compared to the ETF industry’s total assets of $2.23 trillion.
However, net inflows into Europe-listed ETFs faltered in the year ended October, reaching just $12.4 billion, compared to inflows of $25.3 billion for the same period year-over-year, according to ETFGI.
State Street Global Advisors and Vanguard are also gaining traction in the European ETF market. State Street has attracted $3.1 billion in Europe-listed ETFs this year, up 63.2%.
Jim Ross, global head of ETFs at SSgA, stated that State Street is actively trying to “find new friends” in a “concentrated effort” to increase awareness of the company’s products among financial advisors.