Canaccord's Quest lists first cashflow-screened ETF

Canaccord Genuity's Quest has listed the Quest Global Equity Cashflow Compounder ETF on the London Stock Exchange in USD and GBP through Waystone's white-label ICAV platform.

Waystone announced the launch on Oct. 28, and the fund is Quest's first ETF in its 30-year history. It will initially target UK investors.

For UK advisers the practical test is cost, and the ETF cannot yet be costed against market-cap global funds until a fee is published. The ETF gives clients exchange-traded access to a 30-stock cashflow screen Quest has previously sold as institutional research.

The fund tracks the Quest Global Equity Cashflow Compounder Index, which holds 30 liquid global companies picked for their cash generation. Quest scores companies on the cash they produce relative to the capital they employ, which it presents as an alternative to accounting measures such as return on equity. The firm says the index has beaten the MSCI World Index since its inception in 2015. That performance claim rests on the index, not on a live fund; the ETF has no track record of its own yet.

Quest is using Waystone's ICAV platform rather than building ETF operations itself. The firm said the arrangement brings Waystone's infrastructure and services without the cost and complexity of its own set-up.

James Congdon, head of Quest at Canaccord Genuity, said the firm had supplied institutional investors with cashflow-focused research for more than 30 years, and that "the launch of our first ETF marks an important new chapter in bringing insights from that research to a broader range of investors in a transparent, rules-based form."

Canaccord Genuity, Quest's parent, is in talks with Centerbridge and Mubadala about a possible sale of its UK wealth unit, as Private Wealth Daily previously reported.