Welcome to the dog days

The last days of summer in the northern hemisphere are traditionally times when everything slows down, but in the ETF industry, nothing seems to be slowing up. Our launches' columns this week bring you a wide range of global ETP launches, but we also saw the launch of a new service from HSBC, a new end-to-end platform for providing asset servicing solutions to ETF issuers globally.

Never a firm to rest on its laurels, our interview this week with Sean O’Hara, president of Pacer ETF Distributor, reveals that he is in typical expansionist style – not content with announcing that Pacer has just crossed the USD26 billion in assets milestone, an increase of over 25 per cent from the start of the year, but he is also keen to lay down the next target of USD35 billion by the end of this year.

"We are continuing to chug along," O’Hara says, modestly, also noting that the second half of 2023 could see more business flow in making that USD35 billion goal possible. The firm’s Cow series has been a strong performer for them and Pacer is now building out a series of Cows that target growth. Free Cash Flow Margin is the metric these new Growth ETFs will utilise, O’Hara explains, saying that most growth indexes place a high emphasis on sales growth which on its own, doesn’t create alpha. You need profitable sales growth, he says, which is what Free Cash Flow Margin measures.

This is the last week for nominations in the US service provider categories.

To cast your nominations please click here.

Monday, 28th August will see all the voting open for both service providers and issuers, using Trackinsight data, in the 2023, ETF Express US awards. Participants will need to both nominate and vote to ensure their chosen companies have a chance of winning.

Beverly Chandler, Managing Editor

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