Franklin Templeton launches Taiwan ETF for European investors

Franklin Templeton has added a Taiwanese equity exchange traded fund to its passive offering for European investors, increasing its single-country emerging market ETF offering to five products.

The US asset manager claims that at 0.19 per cent the Dublin-domiciled Franklin FTSE Taiwan Ucits ETF has the lowest total expense ratio of any Taiwanese equity ETF available in Europe.

The new ETF, which has listed in Frankfurt, London and Milan, has been registered for sale in countries such as the UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain.

Caroline Baron, head of Franklin’s ETF business in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, said Taiwan was “home to some of the most technologically advanced companies globally and continues to offer attractive investment prospects, given its market leadership in high-growth sectors like electronic circuits, automation and semiconductors”.

This article was previously published by Ignites Europe, a title owned by the FT Group.

Taiwan represented more than 18 per cent of the FTSE Emerging Market Index as of the end of February, and the new Franklin ETF holds about 60 per cent of its assets in Taiwanese technology stocks.

The $1.5tn asset manager’s other single-country emerging market ETFs invest in China, India, Brazil and South Korea. Franklin first entered the European ETF space in 2017.

Other ETF providers that offer dedicated Taiwanese equity strategies to European investors include BlackRock’s iShares arm, HSBC Asset Management and the Xtrackers arm of Germany’s DWS.

*Ignites Europe is a news service published by FT Specialist for professionals working in the asset management industry. It covers everything from new product launches to regulations and industry trends. Trials and subscriptions are available at igniteseurope.com.