IndexIQ has seen assets in its exchange traded funds (ETFs) grow by approximately 46%, and total assets under management and advisement increase by almost 40% in 2014 to over USD1.6 billion.
The increase was led by the IQ Hedge Multi-Strategy Tracker ETF (QAI), which was the first – and remains the largest – liquid alternative ETF.
Five IndexIQ ETFs marked their fifth anniversaries in 2014, including QAI, which turned five on March 25th. The IQ Hedge Macro Tracker ETF (NYSE Arca: MCRO) turned five on 9 June. The IQ Merger Arbitrage ETF (NYSE Arca: MNA), the first ETF designed to give investors exposure to the global corporate mergers and acquisitions (M&A) marketplace, turned five on 17 November, while the IQ Global Resources ETF (NYSE Arca: GRES), the first global resources hedged ETF, and the IQ Real Return ETF (NYSE Arca: CPI), which uses a multi-asset class approach in seeking to deliver a “real return” above the U.S. inflation rate, both reached the five-year mark on October 27th. IndexIQ’s IQ US Real Estate Small Cap ETF (ROOF) turned three years old in June. IQ Global Agribusiness Small Cap ETF (NYSE Arca: CROP), turned three years old in April, while the firm’s IQ Alpha Hedge Strategy Fund (IQHIX – Institutional Class; IQHOX – Investor Class), the first no-load, open-end hedge fund replication mutual fund, turned six years old in June.
In September, IndexIQ announced that it had significantly expanded access to its funds with the news that Charles Schwab was adding five IndexIQ ETFs to its ETF OneSource platform. The funds now available through the OneSource platform are:
• IQ Hedge Multi-Strategy Tracker ETF (NYSE Arca: QAI);
• IQ Hedge Market Neutral Tracker ETF (NYSE Arca: QMN) the first market neutral ETF;
• IQ Merger Arbitrage ETF (NYSE Arca: MNA), the first merger arbitrage ETF;
• IQ Global Resources ETF (NYSE Arca: GRES), the first hedged global natural resources ETF; and
• IQ Global Agribusiness Small Cap ETF (NYSE Arca: CROP), the first agribusiness small cap ETF.
IndexIQ has also continued to see growth in its ETF model portfolio business during 2014. In addition, IndexIQ experienced an increasing number of strategists and other third parties adding the firm’s ETFs to their models throughout the year. As of the end of the third quarter, Morningstar reported tracking 677 strategies from 143 firms with USD96 billion in assets under management. IndexIQ benefited from this growing trend, with year-over-year model portfolio assets climbing by approximately 47% as of 31 December, 2014.
“We believe that the ETF Model business is increasingly important to advisors seeking turn-key investment management solutions. We serve this market both as an ETF Model provider, as well as by working with other ETF Model providers to use our ETFs as building blocks for their portfolios. We are seeing a number of our ETFs added to advisor models as the funds of choice for providing exposure to liquid alternatives,” said Adam Patti, chief executive officer at IndexIQ. “We believe these portfolios represent a substantial growth opportunity for us going forward.”
