Nasdaq is teaming up with financial sector investment bank, Keefe Bruyette & Woods (KBW), in a deal to rebrand, and grow, KBW’s indices that focus on different aspects of the financial industry.
The firms announced a deal Wednesday that will see Nasdaq take over responsibility for calculating, disseminating, and commercializing KBW’s financial sector indices. Those indices track a variety of industry niches, including banking, asset management, broker/dealer, insurance, equity REITs and mortgage finance. Products geared to the indices offer a way for investors to gain, or hedge, exposure to different areas of the financial sector.
The firms also agreed to jointly promote the resulting products and benchmarks to prospective clients. The indices will be rebranded as KBW Nasdaq in June. And, as a result of the deal, Nasdaq says that it will expand its relationship with exchange-traded fund (ETF) provider, Invesco PowerShares. The rebranded indices will underpin seven ETFs targeting various financial industry segments.
“The KBW indices are an extremely valuable brand, and we are excited about the new energy Nasdaq will bring to this partnership,” said Dan Draper, Invesco PowerShares managing director of Global ETFs. “Financial services is the largest sector of the overall global market and while many products lump all financial services companies together, they fail to recognize that financial companies tend to trade on different factors.”
Thomas Michaud, CEO of KBW, said, “We are excited to co-brand our products with an indexing powerhouse like Nasdaq. We believe Nasdaq’s brand and expertise will be instrumental in bolstering visibility for our indices and in the future, introduce new global financial sector indices to investors worldwide.”