Press Release Boston, London, Nice, Paris, Singapore, Tokyo, Feb. 18, 2020
Assets replicating Scientific Beta's indices approach $60bn
Assets under replication reach $59.2bn at December 31, 2019
Scientific Beta has announced that assets tracking its smart beta indices reached $59.2bn at December 31, 2019. Compared to the December 31, 2018 figure of $43bn, this amount of assets under replication represents an increase of $16bn, corresponding to year-on-year growth of 37%.
Noël Amenc, CEO of Scientific Beta, said, "We are proud that the growth in Scientific Beta's assets under replication has been one of the strongest in the smart beta market not only this year but over the last five years. In a market environment that has been challenging for factor strategies, we believe that our transparent and research-based approach to smart beta indexing has been the source of our clients' trust in us."
The year 2019 saw several innovations from Scientific Beta:
- The release on its platform (a hrefwww.scientificbeta.com) of enhanced Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) and climate risk reporting to assist investors in meeting the challenges of incorporating ESG dimensions into passive investment management.
- A new off-the-shelf Low Carbon option for all its flagship multi-smart-factor indices. This filter reduces the carbon footprint of all of Scientific Beta's multi-factor indices by almost 50%.
- Scientific Beta is now providing an ESG option for all of its indices. The ESG option enables investors to benefit from the performance of Scientific Beta's High Factor Intensity (HFI) Multi-Beta Multi-Strategy (MBMS) indices while upholding ESG norms and reducing exposure to companies with high exposure to ESG risks.
- Scientific Beta Factor Analytics Services (SB FAS) is a new, innovative service offered to asset owners who wish to improve the diversification of their global equity allocation. SB FAS is part of a new factor investing approach, which, instead of ignoring the existing portfolio investments and considering each new investment as a standalone, offers a completeness or portfolio overlay approach.
- Scientific Beta introduced the Maximum Volatility Protection (MVP) option, which, added to Scientific Beta's High Factor Intensity (HFI) Low Volatility index, provides a highly defensive offering when needed with a reduction in the index's market beta in difficult times and very strong protection of the capital.
- For several years, Scientific Beta has offered risk control options such as sector neutrality, country neutrality or market beta adjustment on its flagship multi-factor indices to correct for these risks. Scientific Beta is now offering a new risk control option called Historical Volatility Adjustment (HVA) that controls for volatility, manages volatility through time and targets the historical volatility of the multi-factor index, thereby reconciling factor investing and reduction of these risks.
As part of its policy of transferring know-how to the industry, EDHEC-Risk Institute has set up Scientific Beta. Scientific Beta is an original initiative which aims to favour the adoption of the latest advances in smart beta design and implementation by the whole investment industry. Its academic origin provides the foundation for its strategy: offer, in the best economic conditions possible, the smart beta solutions that are most proven scientifically with full transparency of both the methods and the associated risks.
Scientific Beta, 1 George Street, #15-02, Singapore 049145. For further information, please contact: contact@scientificbeta.com, Web: www.scientificbeta.com.