{"id":11904,"date":"2014-05-21T17:18:53","date_gmt":"2014-05-21T09:18:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=11904"},"modified":"2014-05-25T17:25:12","modified_gmt":"2014-05-25T09:25:12","slug":"fund-market-monitor-fund-births-deaths-and-updates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2014\/05\/21\/fund-market-monitor-fund-births-deaths-and-updates\/","title":{"rendered":"Fund Market Monitor: Fund births, deaths, and updates"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Those who have been predicting the death of Canada\u2019s mutual fund market may\u00a0have been a bit premature. Combined assets under management for mutual funds\u00a0and exchange-traded funds now exceed $1 trillion, with the lion\u2019s share of that\u00a0being managed by mutual funds. In a market that size, it\u2019s hard to keep up with\u00a0fund births, deaths, and new identities. Here are the highlights of what\u2019s been\u00a0happening over the past couple of months.<\/p>\n

National Bank rebrands funds. A legendary brand is about to disappear from the\u00a0Canadian mutual fund landscape. National Bank announced that it is rebranding\u00a0the 25 funds under its well-known Altamira brand as National Bank Mutual Funds.<\/p>\n

That new name is in itself a renaming of the old National Bank Securities Mutual\u00a0Funds brand. Also renamed under the new National Bank Mutual Funds brand are\u00a0the funds sold under the Omega brand. In a release, the bank says the portfolio\u00a0managers will remain the same and the funds will remain otherwise unchanged.<\/p>\n

Purpose Investments adds to ETF offerings. Boutique fund factory Purpose\u00a0Investments is the brainchild of Som Seif, formerly the big wheel at ETF\u00a0trailblazer Claymore Investments before it was snapped up by BlackRock Inc.<\/p>\n

Now Purpose has added Purpose Best Ideas Fund (TSX: PBI) and Purpose\u00a0Hedged Real Estate Fund (TSX: PHR) to its ETF lineup. The Best Ideas fund\u00a0holds a portfolio of stocks that are also among the top holdings of 20 big-name investors including Carl Icahn and Warren Buffett. The Real Estate fund invests\u00a0in real estate-focused equities and tactically hedges the duration of the portfolio to\u00a0guard against interest rate risk. The company also launched the Purpose Tactical\u00a0Hedged Equity Fund \u2013 Non Currency Hedged (TSX: PHE.B) \u2013 the fund name\u00a0says it all.<\/p>\n

iShares offers two Europe ETFs. Industry giant BlackRock Canada launched\u00a0two new ETFs with diversified exposure to European stocks. The iShares MSCI\u00a0Europe IMI Index ETF (TSX: XEU) tracks the MSCI Europe IMI Index of\u00a0large, mid, and small-cap stocks from developed European countries. The iShares\u00a0MSCI Europe IMI Index ETF (CAD-Hedged) (TSX: XEH) is the same fund\u00a0hedged to the CAD Index.<\/p>\n

Mackenzie launches income and low-volatility funds. Hoping to cater to\u00a0older investors\u2019 fears of volatility and desire for income, Mackenzie Investments\u00a0launched its Mackenzie US Low Volatility Fund, Mackenzie Investment Grade\u00a0Floating Rate Fund, Mackenzie Global Tactical Bond Fund, and Mackenzie\u00a0US Dividend Fund, which is available in both registered (for RRSPs and RRIFs)\u00a0and non-registered versions.<\/p>\n

Bridgehouse debuts top ideas fund. Funds created from someone\u2019s top stock\u00a0picks are all the rage it seems. Now Brandes Investment Partners\u2019 curiously named\u00a0Bridgehouse Asset Managers division has debuted its Sionna Opportunities\u00a0Fund, which provides exposure to between 20 and 30 of Sionna\u2019s top stock ideas,\u00a0with the aim of \u201cdelivering significant alpha while carefully managing risk,\u201d said\u00a0Sionna president and CIO Kim Shannon in a release.<\/p>\n

Horizons launches swap-based bond ETF. Horizons ETFs Management\u00a0(Canada) Inc., a subsidiary of South Korean financial conglomerate Mirae Asset\u00a0Global Investment Group, launched its Horizons Cdn Select Universe Bond ETF\u00a0(TSX: HBB), which it says will provide investors with low-cost and tax-efficient\u00a0exposure to the Canadian investment-grade bond universe. The ETF tracks the\u00a0performance of the Solactive Canadian Select Universe Bond Index and will be the\u00a0first Canadian fixed-income ETF to use the total return swap structure of Horizons\u00a0ETFs\u2019 total return swap equity ETFs.<\/p>\n

RBC\u2019s new global fund offerings. Big-bank fund machine RBC Global Asset\u00a0Management launched three new funds: RBC Global Equity Focus Fund,\u00a0which invests in 30 to 70 high-quality companies from around the world; RBC\u00a0International Equity Currency Neutral Fund, which uses a passive currency\u00a0hedging strategy to mitigate exchange-rate risk; and BlueBay Global Convertible\u00a0Bond Fund \u2013 Series T5, which aims to combine both fixed-income and equity\u00a0assets for tax-efficient monthly payments.<\/p>\n

Scotiabank seeks sale of its CI Financial holdings. In a move that surprised\u00a0Bay Street analysts, Bank of Nova Scotia (TSX: BNS) announced last week that\u00a0it wants to divest some or all of its 37% stake in mutual fund factory CI Financial\u00a0Corp. (TSX: CIX). The bank reportedly redeploy the capital currently tied up in CI\u00a0more profitably, including potential new acquisitions. CI reported that that assets\u00a0under management at April 30, 2014, climbed to a record $97.3 billion.<\/p>\n

Courtesy of Fundata Canada Inc. \u00a9 2014.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Those who have been predicting the death of Canada\u2019s mutual fund market may\u00a0have been a bit premature. Combined assets under …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":11905,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,18],"tags":[3986,888],"class_list":["post-11904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","category-news-ca","tag-funds","tag-market","mauthors-fund-library-newswire"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11904"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11904\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}