Manulife Exchange Trade Funds (ETFs) began trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange on April 17. The four multi-factor ETFs are being sub-advised by Dimensional Fund Advisors Canada ULC. In launching these funds, Manulife Investments is the first insurer-owned company in Canada to enter the ETF market.

Bernard Letendre, president of Manulife Investments said, "We took our time entering the ETF market to ensure we had a great value proposition for our clients and we believe we achieved this with this initial lineup of ETFs."

A pioneer of multifactor investing

The indices that the Manulife ETFs are designed to track were developed by Dimensional, a pioneer of multifactor investing. "Decades of academic research into the factors that drive higher expected returns have found that in equity markets, relative performance among stocks largely depends on company size, relative price, and profitability," says Eduardo Repetto, Co-CEO, Dimensional Fund Advisors LP. "We have worked with Manulife to construct indexes that the ETFs seek to track which emphasize and balance those factors while managing investment costs."

The four Manulife ETFs are: Manulife Multifactor Canadian Large Cap Index ETF, Manulife Multifactor U.S. Large Cap Index ETF, Manulife Multifactor U.S. Mid Cap Index ETF, and Manulife Multifactor Developed International Index ETF. The management fees range from 0.35% to 0.55% for these funds.