L-R: Taha Lokhandwala, news editor at Investment Adviser, Ted Malcolm, vice-president of UK ETF sales at State Street Global Advisors, and Richard Romer-Lee, managing director at Square Mile Investment Consulting & Research
The winner of the passive investment group of the year is the only one of the category’s five members not to have previously been a member of the Investment Adviser 100 Club.
Yet while it is a relative newcomer to the UK passive market, SPDR exchange-traded funds (ETFs) – which are offered by State Street Global Advisors – have a long history in the US having created the first ETF in 1993.
Since then the SPDR ETF range has continued to grow and as of December 31 2015 it managed more than $427bn (£351bn) across more than 250 ETFs globally. James Ross, one of the members of the original State Street ETF team, is now the global head of SPDR ETFs at State Street Global Advisors.
SPDR stands for Standard & Poor’s Depositary Receipts, which was the name of the original ETF launched by State Street more than 20 years ago, after being approached by the American Stock Exchange to help develop a way to bring more liquidity to the marketplace.
SPDR says all of its ETFs in Europe are physically backed, rather than synthetic, and the group has continued to innovate with new products. This includes 17 advanced beta ETFs tilted towards quality, size, value and volatility, and the launch of the first passive global convertible bonds fund in 2014.
What the judges say
The judges praised the way in which SPDR has established itself with competitively priced products that are built in the right way and without any “hidden risks”.
