First Trust, the sixth-largest U.S. issuer of exchange traded funds, last week won approval from La Comisión Nacional del Sistema de Ahorro para el Retiro (CONSAR), the regulatory agency that oversees Mexico’s pension investments, to sell two ETFs to pensioners in Latin America’s second-largest economy.
With the approval, Illinois-based First Trust will be able to market the $1.27 billion First Trust Large Cap Value Opportunities AlphaDEX Fund (NYSEArca: FTA) and the $1.5 billion First Trust Large Cap Core AlphaDEX Fund (NYSEArca: FEX) to Mexico’s 51 million pensioners.
“There are approximately $164 billion in assets under management in Mexican pension funds and CONSAR projects Mexico’s retirement savings will grow to $225 billion by 2018,” according to a statement issued by First Trust.
FEX, which is seven and a half years old, allocates over 55% of its weight to the consumer discretionary, technology, financial services and industrial sectors. FTA, which like FEX debuted in May 2007, devotes over 51% of its weight to the energy, utilities and consumer discretionary sectors.
Latin American pension plans have become an avenue for growth for U.S. ETF issuers in recent years. Earlier this year, WisdomTree (NasdaqGS: WETF), the fifth-largest U.S. sponsor of ETFs, said CONSAR approved six of its ETFs for sale to Mexican pensioners, bringing the number of WisdomTree ETFs available in Mexico to 13. [WisdomTree Expands LatAm Footprint]