(Bloomberg) — Breaking away from the Wall Street crowd is no easy feat at the best of times. Now imagine the plight of money managers across the ever-competitive investment industry who are scrambling to secure ownership of their original ETF offerings as rival firms launch copycat products with strikingly similar metrics.
That's what happened to VanEck. The asset manager is an early pioneer of associating a fund's investment theme with its given name – a now make-or-break practice for issuers who want to ensure their strategies stick in the minds of investors. After launching an agriculture-focused fund in the US in 2007 under the MOO brand, the firm's executives were shocked to hear that a similar product was making its debut in the European market shortly after.
Ticker for the requested fund? MOOO.
As competition gets tougher, investment firms on both sides of the Atlantic have launched funds with the same metrics as their competitors in another jurisdiction. It doesn't stop there: these copycat funds often have comparable allocation strategies, from niche commodity trading to high-octane technology investments.
That's because all the biggest and best ideas have already been taken, said Ben Johnson, head of client solutions at Morningstar.
“It's fair game at the end of the day,” he said. “If your competitors are not represented in a given market with the same benchmark or concept, then they are the keepers of the finders.”
In some cases, copycat ETFs have achieved the seemingly impossible feat of garnering more inflows than the original offerings, underscoring how first-mover advantage is no guarantee of success in an industry where marketing and distribution of funds can to seal the fate of the signatures of all. the line.
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In the case of MOO, the original fund saw its assets grow to over $2.5 billion just three years after its launch. So another company rolling out a similar product “crossed the line” and had the potential to confuse investors, said a person familiar with VanEck's outlook.
However, there was little the firm could do about it – it didn't own the card, the exchange on which the fund was listed did – and European MOOO ended up embarking on what became an early example of the copycat trend.
Since then, the trend has only grown. An unofficial analysis by Bloomberg found that there are currently at least 59 pairs of imitators – or funds that share similar characteristics and exactly the same four-letter base – listed in Europe and the US by different issuers.
In the US alone, there are more than 3,700 funds, meaning each new entrant is competing in an already crowded arena and within offerings spanning any number of ideas and themes. Against this backdrop, a fund's benchmark can be a big differentiator as retail investors, in particular, tend to favor catchy or easy-to-remember names.
“There is no monopoly on good ideas”
There are few obstacles for a company to port a successful American product to Europe, or vice versa. That's why London-based HANetf, which helps companies bring ETFs to European markets, has partnered with US-based white label issuer Tidal to help them launch in both regions.
Copycat ETFs have yet to face backlash. Hector McNeil, co-founder and co-CEO of HANetf, has heard from disgruntled broadcasters who were not happy when similar products were being rolled out in Europe, and he has sent his messages of displeasure to competitors.
“There is no monopoly on good ideas,” he said in an interview. “If you have something successful there or here, someone will see it and say 'instead of being creative and creating my own idea, the easiest thing is to copy and hopefully improve the idea, if it hasn't been. already done.”
'shame on me'
In 2021, Matt Tuttle, CEO at Tuttle Capital Management, launched a 2x Short Innovation ETF under the SARK brand. The product bets against Cathie Wood's Ark Innovation ETF, which was coming off its best year ever, rising 150% in 2020.
About a month later, the Leverage Shares -3x Short ARK Innovation fund debuted in London – under the name SARK.
The company's tickers typically include a “known reference to the underlying asset/index” with additional notes to highlight what the fund does, said Oktay Kavrak, director of communications and strategy at Leverage Shares. That's why he went with SARK – to show that it was a short strategy.
Earlier this year, the issuer also launched the Leverage Shares 4x Long Semiconductors ETP in London under the ticker SOXL. This fund debuted 14 years after the original SOXL began trading in the US. The original fund from the issuer Direxion is well known by its indicator and currently has about 10 billion dollars in assets.
In that case, “the reputation was already there,” Kavrak said. “Since there was already a point for investors, we thought it would be simpler to understand.” Kavrak added that Leverage Shares has seen some of its titles and strategies replicated in the US.
For Tuttle, everything is fair game.
“If it's a good idea and it makes money in Europe, shame on me for not doing it sooner,” Tuttle said.