Barclays Sets Launches Of Two ETNs
Barclays Plc, the U.K.-based bank behind the iPath family of exchange-traded notes, is launching two ETNs this week, beginning with one today, the Barclays ETN+ FI Enhanced Global High Yield ETN (FIGY) that’s focused on high yielding stocks from around the world.
The second, the Barclays ETN+ FI Enhanced Europe 50 ETN (NYSEArca: FEEU), which launches on Thursday, May 23, is organized around European blue chip companies.
FIGY, the security launching today, is organized around the MSCI World High Dividend Yield USD Gross Total Return Index. It comes with what Barclays calls an annual “exposure fee rate” of 0.64 percent, plus the three-month Libor rate effective on the relevant valuation date, according to regulatory paperwork filed in connection with the launch.
ETNs are frequently created for a relatively tight coterie of clients, so it’s probably a bit presumptuous to read too much into the broad significance of a given launch. But it seems safe nonetheless to situate FIGY in the context of an intensifying global search for income among investors at a time of ultra-low yields that has prevailed in the aftermath of the credit-related market meltdown of 2008-2009.
ETN For A Recovering Europe
The security that’s launching tomorrow, FEEU, is less readily contextualized, except perhaps as a play on Europe’s still-developing recovery from its debt crisis.
The index is composed of 50 European blue chip companies selected from within the Stoxx Europe 600 Index—making it similar to the $64 million SPDR Stoxx Europe 50 ETF (FEU), which comes with an annual expense ratio of 0.29 percent, or $29 for each $10,000 invested.
The parent index contains the 600 largest stocks traded on the major exchanges of 18 European countries:Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.
FEEU has an annual “exposure fee rate” of 0.76 percent plus the three-month Libor rate, according to the paperwork on the ETN that Barclays filed.
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