Toronto-based Evolve Funds Group Inc. announced the launch of Canada’s first gender diversity ETF and cybersecurity ETF on Wednesday.
Both Evolve North American Gender Diversity Index ETF and Evolve Cyber Security Index ETF have closed their initial offering of hedged and unhedged units and began trading on the Toronto Stock Exchanged on Wednesday.
Evolve North American Gender Diversity Index ETF, which provides investors access to North American equities of companies that showcase commitment to gender diversity, looks to replicate the performance of Solactive Equileap North American gender equality index Canadian dollar hedged.
“[The Solactive index] goes beyond just simply looking at the percentage of women on boards or in management, but also women in the workforce and existing [human resources] policies,” says Raj Lala, president and CEO of Evolve, in a statement.
Evolve intends to use 10% of the management fee from Evolve North American Gender Diversity Index ETF to support charities and organizations that advocate for women’s causes, Lala says.
“We have seen rising interest from investors, male and female, for thoroughly researched gender-lens financial products over the past couple of years,” adds Diana van Maasdijk, CEO of Amsterdam-based Equileap, in a statement. “To answer this need, our team of researchers has done a tremendous job assessing and ranking over 3,000 companies on gender equality, using a one-of-a-kind scorecard that looks at 35 points.
Evolve Cyber Security Index ETF will invest for the most part in equities of global companies engaged with the cybersecurity industry via hardware and software development. The ETF seeks to duplicate the performance of the Solactive Global cyber security index Canadian dollar hedged.
“Many corporate CEOs and government officials mention that cyberrisk is at the top of the list of items that keep them up at night,” says Lala, in a statement. “Cybercrime costs the global economy more than $3 trillion annually and is expected to rise. As cybercrime is constantly increasing and changing, the demand for cybersecurity services will most definitely increase as well — and that’s why we’re launching this first in Canada ETF.”
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