Lyxor Asset Management has broken through the €100bn assets under management (AUM) barrier ahead of Amundi’s €825m acquisition due to be complete at the end of the year.
The French asset manager has gathered roughly €7.6bn in assets so far in 2021, driven by its climate and thematic indices as investors continue to transition their portfolios to reduce their carbon footprint.
Around €1.7bn has been raised through ETFs classified as Article 9 under the Sustainable Financial Disclosure Regulation (SFDR) – accounting for 24% of all flows into the dark green ESG funds across Europe – according to Lyxor. It takes its total AUM of Article 9 ETFs to €3.2bn.
Furthermore, the firm’s thematic space has grown by 50% this year, collecting €1.2bn of inflows with AUM totalling €4.4bn.
The group has recently overhauled four of its thematic ETFs to track an index that incorporates ESG metrics as it continues to green up its portfolio.
These include the €1.4bn Lyxor New Energy UCITS ETF (NRJ), the $387m Lyxor Robotics & AI UCITS ETF (ROAI), the $1.5bn Lyxor World Water UCITS ETF (WATC) and the $88m Lyxor MSCI Taiwan UCITS ETF (TWLN).
It follows several index changes on its non-thematic ETFs over the past couple of months to track ESG indices.
Inflation ETFs were also a key driver in its AUM boost, raising €1.9bn over the year as investors attempt to grapple with the largest consumer price jump in decades.
Arnaud Llinas, head of ETFs and indexing at Lyxor, said: “These results encourage us to continue our efforts to develop our thematic, low cost and climate-focused product offering to match retail, wealth and institutional investors demand.”
Following the Amundi acquisition, which signed off in June, the combined ETF business is set to house over €150bn AUM.
Last month, UBS Asset Management also broke the $100bn ETF AUM barrier, some 20 years after the Swiss asset manager launched its first ETFs in Europe in 2001.
