Following ETF Securities decision to sell its European arm to WisdomTree, the London-based ETF provider has agreed to sell Canvas to Legal & General Investment Management, the United Kingdom’s largest asset manager.
Through acquiring Canvas, LGIM’s assets will increase by $2.7 billion and provide the asset manager with 17 equity, fixed-income and commodity ETFs that it plans to use to charge into the European ETF market, reports Chris Flood for the Financial Times.
The acquisition by LGIM is the second largest transaction in Europe this week after WisdomTree agreed to pay $611 million in cash and shares to buy the majority of ETF Securities’ European business.
According to ETFGI data, investors have funneled $94.8 billion into European-listed ETFs over the first 10 months of 2017, with new business growth expanding at twice the pace of last year. In response to the growing popularity of ETFs, more asset managers, like LGIM, are beginning to eye the ETF space as a potential growth opportunity.