Vanilla Emerging Market ETFs Planned

Franklin Templeton recently filed for a trio of emerging markets ETFs tracking plain-vanilla cap-weighted indexes. The three funds will join six other funds launched late last year covering individual countries at a cost of 0.19%, cheaper than any of the comparable iShares ETFs.

The three proposed funds are as follows:

• Franklin Latin America ETF
• Franklin South Africa ETF
• Franklin Saudi Arabia ETF

The filings did not include tickers or expense ratios, so there’s no way of knowing if the pricing on the three funds will be comparable. However, being the cheapest in class may not be that difficult. Currently, the $1.2 billion iShares Latin America 40 ETF (ILF) from BlackRock charges 0.49%, while the iShares MSCI South Africa ETF (EZA), the only fund to cover South Africa’s market, charges 0.62%. Similarly, the iShares MSCI Saudi Arabia ETF (KSA) is the only fund of its kind, and comes with an expense ratio of 0.74%.

The filings do not provide much information about the funds’ underlying indexes, not even who the provider is. However, Franklin’s other country ETFs track indexes provided by FTSE Russell. The ETFs are tentatively slated to list on the NYSE Arca.

Franklin’s family of cap-weighted country and regional ETFs has more than $570 million in assets under management.

Contact Heather Bell at [email protected]