Military, LGBT Focus Of Planned ETFs

Latest funds to hit regulatory pipeline will focus only on U.S. companies friendly to military and LGBT community.

InsightShares, a new brand to the ETF space powered by UBS, is planning to bring to market two thematic U.S. equity ETFs, each focused on a specific demographic.

The ETFs will be offered by white-label provider Exchange Traded Concepts, which is behind 22 other ETFs on the market today, commanding about $4.3 billion in combined assets.

• The InsightShares Military Veterans ETF will be a U.S. equity portfolio including both large and midcap companies thought to be “friendly” to the military. “Military friendly refers to a standard created by Victory Media that measures a company’s commitment, effort and success in creating sustainable and meaningful employment opportunities for our nation’s military veterans,” according to the filing.
• The InsightShares LGBT Employment Equality ETF will consist of a large- and midcap U.S. equity portfolio of companies that “promote and provide equality” for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender workers. The methodology will rely on the Human Rights Campaign Foundation’s Corporate Equality Index, which launched in 2002 and is “the nationally recognized benchmarking report for businesses to gauge their level of LGBT workplace inclusion against competitors,” the filing said.

UBS is the index creator behind both ETFs, and the methodology calls for capitalization and liquidity thresholds to be met for inclusion.

Socially responsible funds are growing in number and in assets, with the likes of the SPDR SSGA Gender Diversity Index ETF (SHE) gathering steam, with $350 million in assets. The Workplace Equality Portfolio (EQLT), which holds stocks of companies that "support LGBT equality in the workplace," has $17 million in assets.

Chart courtesy of StockCharts.com

Tickers and fees for the proposed ETFs were not disclosed.

Contact Cinthia Murphy at [email protected]