State Street Global Looks to Replace Sub-Advisor on Fresco ETFs

State Street Global Advisors will ask Fresco ETF shareholders to replace STOXX with UBS managers
State Street Global Advisors took steps earlier this week toward firing STOXX Limited as the sub-advisor to a pair of its exchange traded mutual funds formally known as the Fesco Dow Jones Euro 50 STOXX 50 Fund and Fresco Dow Jones STOXX 50 Fund.
SsgA indicated in proxy materials with the Securities and Exchange Commission that it intends to ask the funds' shareholders in vote scheduled for June 16 assign UBS Asset Management as the sub-advisor to both funds. The management handoff is tentatively scheduled for July 1 pending a successful vote, according to the SEC filings. STOXX is a joint venture between Deutsche Boerse AG, Dow Jones & Company, and SWX Group.
The filings also indicate that SSgA, the world's largest institutional investment manager, intends to rebrand both funds under its own ETF moniker formally known as streetTRACKS. The measure provides a sorely needed shot in the arm for SSgA's stalled ETF business, which in recent years has been severely outpaced in terms of development in new product launches by Barclays Global Investors' fast-growing iShares ETF family.
Gus Flietes, managing director of SSgA's Advisor Strategies unit, praised STOXX's management and called the pair of Fresco a welcomed addition to the streetTRACKS investment lineup. "The Dow Jones STOXX 50 and Dow Jones Euro STOXX 50 indices are widely recognized proxies for gaining exposure to the European and Eurozone markets respectively," he said. "We would welcome these products to our U.S.-registered streetTRACKS family of exchange traded funds and the opportunity they afford us to expand on our foreign stock investment options."