State Street Global Advisors launches Article 8 emerging market debt fund

State Street Global Advisors, the asset management business of State Street Corporation, has launched the State Street Emerging Markets ESG Hard Currency Government Bond Index Fund, an Article 8 fund investing in US Dollar denominated emerging market government bonds.

The fund tracks the performance of the JP Morgan ESG EMBI Global Diversified Index, which applies an ESG scoring and screening methodology to tilt toward issuers ranked higher on ESG criteria and green bond issues, and to underweight and remove issuers that rank lower.

It is denominated in USD and domiciled in Luxembourg. The fund was seeded with an initial investment of approximately USD50m.

The fund complements State Street Global Advisors’ line up of EMD funds, which includes hard and local currency sovereign funds, with both Article 6 and Article 8 designation.

State Street Global Advisors is one of the world’s largest managers of Emerging Market Debt with more than $40bn of dedicated assets under management as of end of December 2023.

Jennifer Taylor, head of emerging market debt at State Street Global Advisors, said: “We have seen continued growth in our EM Debt business supported by our sophisticated investment process, resulting in consistent and reliable results delivered by our dedicated investment and trading teams. With the launch of this fund we aim to meet an increasing demand for Article 8 products in this growing market.”