Respected exchange traded fund analyst Deborah Fuhr has opened an independent research and consultancy company focusing on the global ETF business.
The new firm is ETF Global Insight.
Fuhr produced research for ETF manager BlackRock, and for Barclays Global Investors before it was acquired by BlackRock. Before that, she spent 11 years at Morgan Stanley.
“Having covered the ETF industry since 1997 when there were only 21 products and $21 billion in assets under management I believe that ETFs have been one of the most successful financial products of the past 25 years, bringing investors liquidity, diversification and low-cost access to a wide range of asset classes around the world,” Fuhr said in a press release.
“While asset growth in the ETF industry has been tremendous, regulators, investors, ETF managers, brokers, index providers and all of the members of the ETF eco-system have been citing the need for more and better independent education, research and customised assistance to investors seeking to navigate the vast array of products,” she said. “ETF Global Insight has been set up to provide this service across the globe.”
The other founding partners of the new firm are Shane Kelly and Matthew Murray.
Kelly is a veteran of Merrill Lynch, BlackRock and Morgan Stanley. Murray is a former associate at Merrill Lynch and served as an analyst on Fuhr’s team at BlackRock.
“The need for independent research and assistance in navigating the ETF landscape is even greater today than at any time in the past ten years,” Fuhr said. “We believe the industry will see significant change as investors and regulators demand greater transparency, clarity and information which will benefit investors globally.”