DWS Launches 4 High-Dividend ESG ETFs in Europe

DWS has expanded its ESG, or environmental, social and governance, range with the launch of four regional high-dividend ETFs in Europe.

The exchange-traded funds cover global, Europe, the U.S. and the European Monetary Union regions and are listed on the Deutsche Boerse with total expense ratios of 0.25%.

The asset manager said the funds will list on London Stock Exchange on 20 October.

The ETFs are:

• Xtrackers MSCI World High Dividend Yield ESG UCITS ETF (XZDW)
• Xtrackers MSCI EMU High Dividend Yield ESG UCITS ETF (XZDZ)
• Xtrackers MSCI Europe High Dividend Yield ESG UCITS ETF (XZDE)
• Xtrackers MSCI USA High Dividend Yield ESG UCITS ETF (XZDU)

The ETFs will track different regions from the MSCI High Dividend Yield Low Carbon SRI Screened Select index family.

For example, XZDW will track the MSCI World High Dividend Yield Low Carbon SRI Screened Select index, investing in large- and mid-cap companies from developed markets. The U.S. is the largest weighting at 67.5%.

The fund classifies companies via market cap before applying an optimization process to maximize the exposure to the dividend yield factor versus the parent index.

It will then reduce the carbon-equivalent exposure to CO2 and other greenhouse gases well as sits exposure to the fossil fuel sector.

The launches come on the back of a strong year to date for the German asset manager. In the third quarter, DWS accounted for almost 20% of exchange-traded product in flows.