Lyxor Brings Gender-Equality Investing to Europe With New ETF

(Bloomberg) -- Lyxor Asset Management has introduced the first exchange-traded fund in Europe focused on gender equality, with top holdings including L’Oreal SA, CenturyLink Inc. and Delta Air Lines Inc.

The Lyxor Global Gender Equality UCITS ETF, which started trading Monday under ticker ELLE FP, tracks 150 companies globally that score highly for gender equality using criteria such as gender balance in leadership, equal compensation and policies promoting women.

It’s a similar investment approach as that of the State Street Global Advisors’ SPDR SSGA Gender Diversity Index ETF (SHE) in the U.S. While that fund’s assets have grown to about $354 million since its introduction in March 2016, the performance has trailed the S&P 500 by about 7 percentage points during the same period.

The new Lyxor fund has an expense ratio of 35 basis points. That puts it in the top third of 380 ETFs traded in France when sorted from highest to lowest fees, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

To contact the reporter on this story: Elena Popina in New York at epopina@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Jeremy Herron at jherron8@bloomberg.net, Celeste Perri at cperri@bloomberg.net, Richard Richtmyer, Brendan Walsh

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