More mutual fund providers are buckling under the pressure to begin offering exchange traded products as the space gains a growing investment base. Huntington Asset Advisors is the latest asset manager to shift over to ETFs, launching an actively managed ETFs Wednesday.
According to a press release, under the new ETF suite Huntington Strategy Shares, the Huntington EcoLogical Strategy ETF (NYSEArca: HECO) will try to achieve capital appreciation and provide exposure to ecologically-focused companies and products. The companies included in the ETF will have to demonstrate environmental stewardship and produce “green” and sustainable products or services.
Consequently, the fund may be correlated to broad market indices, such as the S&P 500, and the green sector, like clean technology or alternative energy.
“Many green funds emphasize nascent technologies like wind and solar because they are clean, without regard to whether that’s a logical investment,” Randy Bateman, Huntington’s chief investment officer and president of Huntington Asset Advisors (HAA), said in the press release. “Our approach looks at those opportunities, but then applies logic around whether or not that company is producing products that are affordable by broad markets.”
“Within Huntington, we have an established team of experts whose goal is to select the top environmentally-friendly investments for this ETF,” Brian Salerno, EcoLogical Strategy ETF manager, said in the press release. “Companies with these sustainably green characteristics tend to be more seasoned, have profitable business models, and are usually good environmental stewards.”
Huntington Asset Advisors is a unit of Huntington Bancshares (NasdaqGM: HBAN).
For more information on new product launches, visit our new ETFs category.
Max Chen contributed to this article.