(Bloomberg) -- Engine No. 1’s latest exchange-traded fund will focus on companies seeking to bring their operations closer to home after the pandemic upended global supply chains.
The Engine No. 1 Transform Supply Chain ETF (ticker SUPP) will begin trading on Wednesday, according to a press release, bringing the firm’s lineup to three funds. SUPP is an actively managed fund and charges 75 basis points annually.
The ETF invests in companies that will help make supply chains more resilient through the “relocalization of manufacturing, automation and innovation” after Covid-19 snarled the logistics of the global economy, the release said. The bulk of the portfolio will be made up of North American firms in industries from railroads to semiconductors to software companies.
“We’ve experienced first-hand how fragile our supply chains have become,” Eli Horton, SUPP’s lead portfolio manager, said in a phone interview. “As an investor, you look to be early, and the way I think about this portfolio is the businesses we’re investing in are the beneficiaries and enablers of this theme.”
SUPP’s “concentrated” portfolio will hold between 20 to 40 companies, Horton said. Its top holding is Martin Marietta Materials Inc., a building materials supplier based in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Engine No. 1 made its name as an activist investor by winning a campaign to replace three seats on the board of Exxon Mobil Corp. in 2021. Since then, it launched the $419 million Engine No. 1 Transform 500 ETF (VOTE) in June 2021, which seeks change at large-cap companies through proxy voting, followed by the actively managed $95 million Transform Climate ETF (NETZ) in February 2022.
“What we’re trying to achieve with this suite of products is providing access to investors to long-term secular themes which will define the investment landscape in decades to come,” Yasmin Dahya Bilger, Engine No. 1’s head of ETFs, said in a phone interview. “We’re being very deliberate and curated on these exposures.”
