Simon Klein, DeAWM’s Head of Exchange Traded Product Sales, EMEA and Asia.

Deutsche Asset & Wealth Management (DeAWM) has become one of Europe’s largest providers of direct, physical replication exchange-traded funds following the completion of an ambitious programme to convert 18 synthetic ETFs into physical format, as well as the launch of several new physical products.

Assets under management in DeAWM’s physical ETF suite now sit at approximately €11bn, making DeAWM the second biggest provider of physical ETFs in Europe.

Their physical ETFs include some of the largest in Europe by AUM, such as the db X-trackers Euro Stoxx 50 UCITS ETF (DR) with €2.4bn in assets, the db X-trackers DAX UCITS ETF (DR) with €2.3bn in assets and the db X-trackers MSCI Europe Index UCITS ETF (DR) with €1.6bn in assets.

In total, DeAWM offers more than 30 physical replication ETFs listed across all the main European exchanges.

Simon Klein, DeAWM’s Head of Exchange Traded Product Sales, EMEA and Asia, said: “The switching of such a large raft of ETFs to physical replication in such a short timeframe is unprecedented, but the uptick in demand we’ve registered in the first quarter demonstrates that this was the correct strategy. Year-to-date we’ve seen inflows of around €560m into our physical replication ETFs, while the feedback from clients continues to be extremely positive.”

In addition to those ETFs that have switched replication strategy, DeAWM has also increased its direct replication offering via the launch of several new funds, including the db X-trackers Harvest CSI300 Index UCITS ETF (DR). This fund is the first physical ETF in Europe to track the CSI 300 Index, a key benchmark for Chinese A-shares covering more than 75% of Chinese market capitalisation.

DeAWM has said that it plans to continue to expand its range of direct, physical replication ETFs over the course of 2014.