BlackRock’s former global head of exchange traded fund research, Deborah Fuhr, is back.
Fuhr is launching her own firm devoted to research and consulting in the exchange trade market, called ETF Global Insight.
The firm will focus on publishing independent research on the industry as well as providing a variety of products, applications and competitor analysis to clients. It will also offer education and assistance to investors on product comparison and asset allocation implementation as well as offer customized research.
Fuhr will bring with her two members of her former team at BlackRock, Shane Kelly and Matthew Murray.
"Having covered the ETF industry since 1997 when there were only 21 products and $21 billion in assets under management I believe that ETFs have been one of the most successful financial products of the past 25 years, bringing investors liquidity, diversification and low-cost access to a wide range of asset classes around the world,” Fuhr said in a statement.
While asset growth in the ETF industry has been “tremendous,” she said, regulators, investors, ETF managers, brokers, index providers and other participants in the ETF market have been citing the need for more and better independent education, research and customized assistance to investors seeking to navigate the vast array of products. ETF Global Insight has been set up to tap into this demand globally, she said.
Until July, Fuhr served as global head of ETF research and implementation strategy, as well as a managing director at BlackRock and Barclays Global Investors for three years until 2011.
While there, she led a team responsible for advising clients on ETF asset allocation strategies, as well as producing analysis and guidebooks. She left the company after the responsibility for ETF research was moved to BlackRock Investment Institute.
Before joining BlackRock, she worked 11 years at Morgan Stanley where she was a managing director and head of the firm’s investment strategies group in London.
