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31 July 2026

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VanEck

  •   1 June 2026
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Quality, recalibrated for Australia.

VanEck launches Australian Quality Plus

Sydney, 1 June 2026 - Following a decade of research and analysis into single factor investing in Australian equities, global fund manager and smart beta pioneer VanEck has today launched the VanEck MSCI Australian Quality Plus ETF (ASX: AQTY) on the ASX.

AQTY has been developed to address the structural challenges of the Australian share market, which is narrow, highly concentrated and cyclical. The fund uses a purpose-built index developed in partnership with MSCI to identify 50 Australian companies based on financial strength, pricing discipline and resilience instead of market size.

It is the first Australian equity ETF using an optimised methodology designed specifically to engineer a 'quality' investment outcome.

Arian Neiron, CEO and Managing Director of VanEck Asia Pacific said, "Quality investing is well understood globally, but Australia is not a standard market. It is concentrated, cyclical and dominated by sectors that can distort traditional factor outcomes. Applying a conventional quality screen to Australian equities has historically left investors exposed to the very risks they were seeking to manage.

“AQTY has been engineered specifically for the Australian market. It is designed to capture companies with durable financial strength, while also applying valuation discipline and a defensive portfolio construction process.

“This is the critical distinction. Quality investing should not just be about finding profitable companies. In Australia, it also needs to consider whether those companies are sensibly priced and whether the portfolio is built to withstand market volatility. AQTY is designed to find companies that meet all three criteria,” said Neiron.

Recent policy developments, including measures announced in the Federal Budget, have prompted many investors to reconsider how they position portfolios for the years ahead. Combined with signs of a potential shift in market leadership and elevated valuations across parts of the market, the investment environment is becoming more selective. In this context, quality investing remains highly relevant, but only when adapted to Australia's unique market structure and focused on businesses with durable financial strength, resilience and sensible valuations.

Rebalanced quarterly, AQTY’s index uses multiple signals to identify financially sound and consistently profitable companies while limiting exposure to overvalued segments of the market.

The result is a portfolio of 50 Australian companies selected for what they have delivered rather than what they are forecast to deliver, constructed in a way that does not simply replicate the existing imbalances of the broader Australian share market.

Find out more here

 

  •   1 June 2026
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