State Street Global Advisors (SSGA) has appointed Marcus Miholich as its head of Standard & Poors depositary receipt (SPDR) exchange-traded funds (ETFs) for the Nordic region.
Based in London, Miholich will be responsible for evaluating the investment objectives of SSGA’s Nordic client base. He will report to Rory Tobin, global co-head of SPDR ETFs at SSGA.
Prior to joining SSGA, Miholich worked at Haitong Securities as head of delta one, ETF and cash equity trading. Before this he held senior positions at Merrill Lynch, J.P. Morgan and Morgan Stanley.
The appointment follows the hiring of Ana Concejero to head SPDR ETFs in Spain earlier this month.
Tobin said: “While assets under management in the European ETF market currently represents less than 7 percent of the mutual fund market, ETFs represent the fastest growing segment, with ETF assets increasing by over 30 percent year-to-date.”
He added: “We are seeing increasing demand for ETFs from clients in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden, who are attracted to the cost-effective and transparent nature of ETFs, as well as the ability to access liquidity in real time.”
Miholich commented: “Alongside traditional core equity and fixed income exposures, investors in the Nordic region are turning to ETFs to deliver strategies that were traditionally the domain of active managers, like factor, thematic or smart beta investments.”
“ETF adoption in the region is also strong in areas like emerging market fixed income, where ETFs had a first-mover advantage in the market. More tactically, we are also seeing investor demand for indexed products that offer select sector exposures.”
