Lazard Adds U.S. Sustainable Equity Portfolio: Portfolio Products

The fund is "designed to generate both attractive investment returns and positive social and environmental impact" and will invest in businesses worldwide via "direct investments and primary or secondary investments, with a focus on health and wellness, energy and environment, community development, and financial empowerment," the firm said.

"Leveraging Hamilton Lane's broad network and robust platform of deal flow" and general partner relationships, the fund "will seek investments across diversified private markets strategies—including buyout, growth, venture and real assets—that generate meaningful and measurable impact," it said.

The fund will focus mainly on investments in the developed markets, with the opportunity to impact the emerging markets through companies with global operations, the company said. Its  investor base is made up of a diverse mix of limited partners, including large private pension funds, financial institutions, high-net-worth individuals, endowments and other institutions, it noted.

New York Life Introduces MainStay ETF Suite

New from New York Life Investments is the MainStay ETF Allocation Suite, a collection of five target risk-based asset allocation funds invested in unaffiliated passive ETFs.

"Recent market volatility has underscored the critical importance of well-diversified and risk-oriented asset allocation strategies that offer a range of solutions and investment objectives from income preservation to long-term capital growth," according to Kirk Lehneis, the firm's chief operating officer and president of MainStay Funds.

The new allocation suite "provides clients with a full range of relatively low-cost solutions tailored to different risk tolerances, harnessing our multi-asset expertise to navigate the rapidly changing investment environment," he said in a statement.

The MainStay ETF Allocation Suite includes five strategies trading on the Nasdaq: the Mainstay Defensive ETF Allocation Fund (MDNAX); Mainstay Conservative ETF Allocation Fund (MNEAX); Mainstay Moderate ETF Allocation Fund (MDAAX); Mainstay Growth ETF Allocation Fund (MOEAX); and Mainstay Equity ETF Allocation Fund (MWFAX). Net expense ratios are 0.94% for all but the Growth ETF, which is 0.96%, plus a sales charge of 2%-3% for the A shares, which are listed here. Institutional shares have expense ratios of 0.69% for all but the Growth ETF, which is 0.71%, and no sales charge but require a minimum investment of $1 million.

Each strategy seeks to achieve its investment objective by leveraging fundamental and quantitative approaches to invest primarily in third-party fixed income and equity passive ETFs, the firm said. In accordance with its risk profile, each fund offers a distinctly different allocation to underlying U.S. equity, international equity and/or fixed income ETFs.

AllianzIM Launches July Series ETFs

Allianz Investment Management's AllianzIM U.S. Large Cap Buffer10 Jul ETF (AZAL) and AllianzIM U.S. Large Cap Buffer20 Jul ETF (AZBL) started trading on the NYSE Arca, each with a 0.74% net expense ratio.

AllianzIM Buffered Outcome ETFs were "designed to expand the risk management strategies available to investors as prevailing market dynamics and declining appetite for risk create new challenges," the company said.

The AllianzIM ETFs seek to match the returns of the S&P 500 Price Return Index up to a stated cap (15.36% for AZAL and 8.06% for AZBL), while providing downside risk mitigation through a buffer (9.26% for AZAL and 19.26% for AZBL) against the first 10% and 20% of S&P 500 Price Return Index losses over the 12-month outcome period, it noted.

TrueMark Rolls Out First TrueShares Structured Outcome ETF

Asset manager TrueMark Investments launched the TrueShares Structured Outcome (July) ETF (JULZ, with a net expense ratio of 0.79%), the first ETF in its new TrueShares structured outcome product suite, on the Chicago Board Options Exchange.

The new ETF is sub-advised by SpiderRock Advisors and seeks to provide investors with structured outcome exposure to the S&P 500 Price Index, and offers a built-in downside buffer with uncapped upside participation, TrueMark said.

JULZ is just the first of 12 monthly series in the TrueShares Structured Outcome ETF suite. Each fund will roll over at the end of a year-long term, at which point the downside buffer and upside participation reset based on current pricing for the options used by the strategy for each respective ETF, TrueMark said.

The fund seeks to provide investors with returns (before fees and expenses) that track the S&P 500 Price Index, while seeking to provide a buffer of 8-12% on that index's losses over the fund's one-year investment period, it pointed out. "In practice, the fund adviser will target the buffer at 10% of index declines over the investment period following the first day of trading while also allowing for uncapped upside participation," it added.

— Check out last week's portfolio product roundup here: UBS Expands SMAs to Third-Party Asset Managers: Portfolio Products