Hanwha Asset Management’s "PLUS High Dividend Stocks ETF" Surpasses 2 Trillion Won in Net Assets

Hanwha Asset Management announced on the 4th that the net assets of its "PLUS High Dividend Stocks" exchange-traded fund (ETF) have surpassed 2 trillion won. This comes seven months after the fund’s net assets exceeded 1 trillion won in June last year.

According to Korea Fund Ratings’ Fund Square, as of the 3rd, the net assets of the "PLUS High Dividend Stocks" ETF stood at 2.0401 trillion won. As a result, Hanwha Asset Management now manages not only ETFs with around 1 trillion won in net assets, such as the "PLUS K-Defense" ETF and the "PLUS 200" ETF, but also an ETF with around 2 trillion won in net assets.

Listed in August 2012, the PLUS High Dividend Stocks ETF has seen both its share price and distributions grow steadily for more than 13 years. Its net assets have grown at an average annual rate of 36.5%, while distributions have grown at an average annual rate of 10.5% since the first payout in December 2013.

The revision of the foreign tax credit system early last year served as a growth catalyst for the PLUS High Dividend Stocks ETF. Due to the revision, most tax-deferral benefits on distributions from foreign investment funds and ETFs disappeared, prompting a shift of funds into the PLUS High Dividend Stocks ETF, a leading domestic dividend ETF.

A key feature of the PLUS High Dividend Stocks ETF is that it uses only the dividend income from the stocks it holds as the source for distributions. It does not use capital gains from stock trading or principal for distributions. This is the driving force that allows the stock price and distributions to grow together.

Building on the PLUS High Dividend Stocks ETF, Hanwha Asset Management has expanded it into a high-dividend stock series totaling 2.8929 trillion won in size, including "PLUS High Dividend Stock-Bond Mixed," "PLUS High Dividend Weekly Covered Call," "PLUS High Dividend Weekly Fixed Covered Call," and "PLUS Share Buyback High Dividend Stocks."

Choi Youngjin, Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) and Vice President at Hanwha Asset Management, said, "Over the past 14 years, PLUS High Dividend Stocks has focused more on the source and sustainability of distributions than on short-term competition for high payout ratios," adding, "As a result of pursuing dividend growth solely through companies’ cash dividends rather than capital gains, the distribution paid in January this year increased by more than 10% compared to the previous month." He continued, "Considering not only the structure in which principal is preserved while dividends grow together, but also the benefit of separate taxation on dividend income, demand is expected to continue to grow mainly among long-term pension investors."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.