In a well-signalled move, Smart rolled four new exchange-traded funds (ETFs) off the factory line last week.
The fresh batch of on-trend ETFs reflect the NZX-owned funds management arm sharpened focus on meeting market needs, according to Smart chief, Anna Scott.
“We’re a product manufacturer,” Scott said. “We want to give NZ investors options.”
She said Smart would look to launch more ETFs that tap into global trends or where it identifies a gap in the NZ market.
The latest BlackRock-managed releases – covering bitcoin, gold, and US tech stocks – plus the S&P-indexed NZX 20 fund bring the total Smart ETF suite to 44 products.
But while new funds might be on the radar next year, Scott said less popular products might also ultimately be closed on “efficiency” grounds.
“We’re going to follow an annual product review cycle,” she said, beginning in 2025.
In the interim, Smart plans to dial-up sales and educational programs across its product range including the brand new ETF quartet.
Scott said the group’s strengthened partnership with BlackRock would enable Smart to “leverage” investment education materials developed by the US-headquartered fund manager (now boasting some US$11.5 trillion in assets).
Excluding the just-launched products, the NZX already offered 10 BlackRock iShares ETFs under the Smart wrapper with about $770 million under management. The stock exchange-owned manager runs another $100 million or so of iShares money through the related SuperLife Global Aggregate Bond Fund.
BlackRock, of course, has made huge inroads into the NZ investment landscape after striking deals with ASB, AMP and, more recently, ANZ.
However, the Smart relationship was solely about ETF supply and ancillary investor support services, Scott said.
The new iShares range costs between 0.45 per cent (for the tech fund) to 0.55 per cent (bitcoin and gold vehicles).
Internally, the NZX has determined that both the underlying US-listed bitcoin and gold “should be considered as Foreign Investment Funds (FIFs)”.
“The investment in these FIFs should be treated as ordinary shares meaning that the Fair Dividend Rate (FDR) method will apply when calculating taxable income.”
Meanwhile, the Smart NZX 20 product carries a 0.20 per cent price-tag. Created partly as a competitive response to the popular Kernel fund that tracks the 20 largest NZX stocks, Scott said the Smart version would also complement a long-awaited institutional derivative product.
The exchange has been working since at least 2021 on resurrecting the local derivatives market with the proposed launch of a NZX 20 futures product.
Smart uses BNP Paribas as custodian and administrator, MUFG NZ (formerly known as Link) for registry, and Public Trust for supervision.