Global X, an American subsidiary of Seoul-based Mirae Asset Global Investments Group, has been a notable outperformer in the global theme-investing exchange traded funds market through timely and lucrative curating.

Assets under management by Global X reached $40.2 billion as of Oct 18, nearly doubled from $20.9 billion it had at the end of 2020, according to data from market tracker ETF.com.

New York-based Global X has gained impetus after it went under South Korean financial investment group Mirae Asset in January 2018.

The ETF specialist lately has been focusing its offering on themed products, which invest in companies or sectors expected to deliver long-term, structured growth. It has created theme ETFs in almost all areas in fashion, ranging from rechargeable battery and robotics to cloud computing and cyber security, amid international investors’ growing demand. According to Eugene Investment & Securities, theme ETFs listed in the U.S. has pulled in $32.3 billion from January to September this year to exceed last year’s inflow of $31.6 billion.

Global X’s best-selling theme ETF is Lithium & Battery ETF, which invests in the full lithium cycle, from mining and refining the metal to battery production. It has $5.1 billion net asset, the largest among Global X’s ETFs and boasts year-to-date return rate of 43.61 percent. The fund has various Li-ion battery related companies in its basket, with the largest 13.84 percent invested in world’s largest Li-ion provider Albemarle. Korean battery makers including Samsung SDI account for about 10 percent of its invested assets.

Other theme ETFs have been performing handsomely.

U.S. Infrastructure Development ETF has net assets of $4.58 billion and year-to-date return of 28.29 percent, which exceeds S&P 500’s 20 percent. The fund invests in infrastructure related sectors, from raw materials production to heavy equipment and construction that are expected to benefit from the U.S. government’s massive infrastructure investment plan.

Uranium ETF with net assets of $1.38 billion saws returns doubled from the beginning of the year, thanks to jump in global uranium price. Global X’s Uranium ETF is the largest among its kind in the world. The fund invests in companies involved in uranium mining and nuclear components production, which has come under global spotlight to resolve energy shortage issue created in the course of transition to renewable energy sources.

As of end of September, combined assets under management amounted to $74.2 billion at Global X’s ETFs and its Korean affiliate Mirae Asset Global Investments’s Tiger ETFs, according to market tracker ETFGI’s data.

By Moon Ji-woong and Cho Jeehyun

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