First Trust Advisors has announced that Mexican pension funds investment regulator, La Comisión Nacional del Sistema de Ahorro para el Retiro (CONSAR), has approved two First Trust ETFs for sale to Mexican funded pensions, known as AFORES.
According to Mexico’s pension plan investment guidelines, before an ETF can be purchased in a pension fund, it must be approved by CONSAR. “We are pleased that our first two AlphaDEX ETFs are officially approved for sale to Mexican pension funds,” said Dan Lindquist, Managing Director of First Trust. “This opportunity helps to further expand the footprint of our merit-based AlphaDEX ETFs into a new institutional market for First Trust.”
The two funds that have been approved are:
- First Trust Large Cap Value AlphaDEX® Fund (NYSE Arca: FTA)
- First Trust Large Cap Core AlphaDEX® Fund (NYSE Arca: FEX)
In addition, both funds are cross-listed on the Bolsa Mexicana de Valores under the same ticker symbols.
Currently, over 51 million Mexican workers save for their retirement in AFORES, according to CONSAR. There are approximately $164 billion (USD) in assets under management in Mexican pension funds and CONSAR projects Mexico’s retirement savings will grow to $225 billion (USD) by 2018. “As Mexico’s retirement savings grows, we are delighted to provide local pension managers an option for investing in index-based ETFs that seek risk-adjusted excess returns over time by selecting and weighting stocks based on fundamental merit-based factors,” Lindquist said.
First Trust Advisors L.P., along with its affiliate First Trust Portfolios L.P., are privately held companies which provide a variety of investment services, including asset management and financial advisory services, with collective assets under management or supervision of approximately $101 billion as of October 31, 2014 through unit investment trusts, exchange-traded funds, closed-end funds, mutual funds and separate managed accounts. First Trust is based in Wheaton, Illinois.