The db X-trackers Harvest CSI 300 China A-Shares Fund (NYSEArca: ASHR) is barely more than a month old and it is already accurate to call the new fund one of the most successful U.S. ETF launches of 2013.
Deutsche Asset & Wealth Management and Harvest Global Investments will look to replicate ASHR’s success with a Europe-listed version of the ETF slated to launch in January. Luxembourg’s financial regulator approved the launch of a European equivalent of ASHR last month and it is expected the new ETF will debut in London Jan. 16, 2014, according to AsianInvestor.
Deutsche Asset & Wealth Management previously told AsianInvestor it hopes to list China A-shares ETFs across Europe. The unit of Germany’s Deutsche Bank has ETFs in France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland and the U.K.
ASHR is the first U.S.-listed ETF to offer investors direct access to stocks trading in Shanghai and Shenzhen, China’s A-shares markets. Older versions of China A-shares ETFs hold derivatives, not equities.
ASHR, which debuted in early November, is already flirting with $200 million in assets under management, easily making it one of the most successful new ETFs of 2013. [These 10 New ETFs Have Rapidly Gained Assets]
Harvest is a Renminbi Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor (RQFII), which means it meets Chinese regulatory requirements to be a foreign owner of A-shares.
ASHR tracks the CSI 300 Index, a collection of the large-caps including China Minsheng Banking, China Merchants Bank, Industrial Bank, Ping An Insurance, Shanghai Pudong Development Bank, Haitong Securities and China Vanke. [China A-Shares ETF Officially Debuts]
ASHR’s underlying index allocates 38.6% of its weight to the financial services sector, 13.1% to industrials and almost 11.3% to consumer discretionary names.
ETF Trends editorial team contributed to this post.