WisdomTree today launched the WisdomTree Global Automotive Innovators UCITS ETF (WCAR). Listed today on Börse Xetra and Borsa Italiana, WCAR seeks to track the price and yield performance, before fees and expenses, of the WisdomTree Berylls LeanVal Global Automotive Innovators NTR Index and has a total expense ratio of 0.45%. WCAR will list on the London Stock Exchange on 28 September 2022.
Christopher Gannatti, Global Head of Research at WisdomTree.
The Index is designed to track the performance of global companies involved in the future automotive and mobility industry and that meet WisdomTree’s ESG (environmental, social and governance) criteria.
Rapid innovation in transportation promises not only cutting-edge solutions to the world’s evolving mobility needs, but decarbonisation of a sector that accounts for around 12% of greenhouse gas emissions.
“The automotive and mobility industry is moving from a traditional ecosystem to an extended multimodal ecosystem leveraging new technologies and attempting to decarbonise transportation services. This will be a driving force of further investments and ultimately transforming the industry. This has created a clear gap for an ETF providing diversified geographic and sector exposure, covering companies that are relevant today and identified the companies that stand to benefit the most from the further proliferation of the theme and are poised to grow with it. That is exactly what we have built.”
Christopher Gannatti, Global Head of Research at WisdomTree
In developing WCAR, WisdomTree has partnered with Berylls Strategy Advisors (Berylls) and LeanVal Research (LeanVal). Berylls was founded over 10 years ago and today, with almost 200 employees, bring a clear focus on the trends shaping the future of automotive and mobility industry. Berylls’ dedicated automotive and mobility industry expertise allows them to build strategies for their industry clients and to form bottom-up views on the universe of companies poised to benefit from automobility megatrends. LeanVal, founded in 2017, has extensive expertise in the analysis, valuation, and selection of stocks as well as in the design of equity strategies based on high quality data.
The index is built on the deep industry expertise of Berylls so that companies’ innovation and focus on the value chain are considered. In addition, constituents are screened for financial strength based on LeanVal’s research, ensuring the index is robust both in terms of industry focus and financial performance.
“We have developed an award-winning range of thematic products and believe our expert partners represent the cutting edge of their respective industries. On this occasion, partnering with industry experts Berylls and LeanVal has allowed us to develop an index that provides a holistic view of the existing automotive industry but also the global future mobility industry. This launch reinforces our commitment to delivering differentiated and purer thematic exposures than can be found elsewhere in an ETF wrapper. Our expert driven approach to building thematic ETFs continues to resonate with investors willing to look beyond traditional benchmarks for diversification.”
Alexis Marinof, Head of Europe at WisdomTree
The Index, tracked by WCAR represents the first pure index covering the entire global automotive and mobility ecosystem and considers the future-oriented strategies of the companies by covering the 100 most relevant and promising publicly listed companies worldwide. The index comprises of the following sectors within the automotive and mobility industry: original equipment manufacturers, suppliers, car dealers, mobility service providers, and infrastructure providers. This allows the ETF to also capture four megatrends shaping the transformation of the global automotive and mobility industry. These are connectivity, autonomous driving, shared mobility, and electrification.
- Connectivity: Connected vehicles will not only improve on-board communication but turn vehicles into another edge device, facilitating data exchange between the car and its environment. Technology changes towards software-defined vehicles are coming that will unlock an entirely new level of functionality for drivers.
- Autonomous driving: Benefits of autonomous driving include safety, fuel efficiency, cost reduction, and freeing up human time. In addition to its use in passenger vehicles, it can also create new solutions for long-haul trucking, last-mile distribution, and public transport.
- Shared mobility: With cities becoming increasingly congested and struggling to meet consumers’ needs for individual mobility, shared mobility will offer an alternative solution. This could not only reduce the financial burden on individuals and city planners but also help the environment by cutting emissions.
- Electrification: Battery powered electric vehicles could account for 53% of passenger vehicle sales worldwide by 2034, up from 6% in 2021, and 73% by 20402. The environmental benefits of electric vehicles will continue to impel governments to facilitate this technology.
