A strong management team and sound investment process underpin Xtrackers MSCI EMs ESG Leaders Eq ETF's Morningstar Medalist Rating of Silver. The portfolio maintains a cost advantage over competitors, priced within the cheapest fee quintile among peers.  

 The strategy’s management team earns an Above Average People Pillar rating. The strategy's effective investment approach earns an Above Average Process Pillar rating. Independent of the rating, analysis of the strategy's portfolio shows it has maintained an underweight position in quality exposure and liquidity exposure compared with category peers. Low quality exposure is attributed to stocks with higher financial leverage and lower profitability. And a low liquidity exposure is rooted in stocks with lower trading volumes, limiting managers' flexibility. The strategy's parent organization earns the firm an Average Parent Pillar rating. People Pillar and Parent Pillar ratings for this strategy are indirectly assigned by a Morningstar analyst rather than algorithmically derived. Please see the notes following each pillar section for more details. The details of assigning methods can be found in each pillar section.

Analyst Rating

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Morningstar's evaluation of this security's process aims to determine the likelihood that it will outperform its Morningstar Category index on a risk-adjusted basis over the long term. Xtrackers MSCI EMs ESG Leaders Eq ETF earns an Above Average Process Pillar rating. The most important driver of the rating is that this fund tracks an index. Historical data, such as Morningstar's Active/Passive Barometer, finds that passively managed funds have generally outperformed their active counterparts, especially over longer time horizons. The process is limited by the fund's mediocre long-term risk-adjusted performance. This can be seen in its five-year alpha calculated relative to the category index, which suggests that the process has struggled over that period.

The investment strategy as stated in the fund's prospectus is:  The investment seeks investment results that correspond generally to the performance, before fees and expenses, and of the MSCI Emerging Markets ESG Leaders Index.  The index consists of large- and medium-capitalization companies across emerging markets countries. The fund will invest at least 80% of its total assets (but typically far more) in component securities (including depositary receipts in respect of such securities) of the index. The fund is non-diversified. 

 The portfolio is overweight in communication services by 6.4 percentage points in terms of assets compared with the category average, and its utilities allocation is similar to the category. The sectors with low exposure compared to category peers are consumer defensive and technology; however, the allocations are similar to the category. The strategy owns 513 securities and is quite concentrated. In particular, 34.9% of the strategy's assets are housed within the top 10 holdings, as opposed to the category’s 25.3% average. And in closing, in terms of portfolio turnover, looking at year-over-year movements, 23% of the fund's holdings have changed, whether through increasing, decreasing, or changing a position.

Above Average

Process

Xtrackers MSCI EMs ESG Leaders Eq ETF's strong team drives the strategy's Above Average People Pillar rating. There are four managers listed on the fund: Shlomo Bassous, Bryan Richards, Patrick Dwyer, Ashif Shaikh. The team is well equipped, with an average of 17 years of portfolio management experience. Together, they manage a total of 32 strategies, with solid long-term prospects. The strategies average a Silver asset-weighted Morningstar Medalist Rating, indicating a position to deliver positive alpha relative to the category median in aggregate.  

 Note: This People Pillar rating is indirectly assigned by an analyst. Morningstar analysts evaluate the People Pillar for passive products at the brand level and may also differentiate by asset class. There is at least one other passive strategy at the firm that is covered by a Morningstar analyst, so the People Pillar rating of the fund is inherited from the rating that the Morningstar analyst assigned to investment vehicles under the same brand name.

People

In the past two years, DWS has been under heavy scrutiny from the SEC and German authorities owing to greenwashing allegations that were initially raised in August 2021 by the firm’s former chief sustainability officer Desiree Fixler. The SEC announced on Sept. 25, 2023, that it has fined DWS USD 19 million for failing to implement procedures to ensure that all investment staff members were following its environmental, social, and governance policies. This relates to funds where ESG factors were analyzed alongside other financially material factors, but where managers retained discretion over ESG outcomes. In addition, the firm was ordered to pay USD 6 million for deficiencies in its anti-money-laundering processes that were uncovered in a separate investigation. The investigation by the German authorities into the firm's ESG disclosures is still ongoing.  
The SEC findings underline that despite strong senior management commitment, it takes a considerable amount of time and resources to embed sustainability across all levels of an organization for firms without a long-standing sustainability heritage. Overconfidence and failure to deal with internal criticism adequately appear to have contributed to DWS' misleading statements on ESG matters. While it's difficult to quantify the financial damage to clients and no misstatements were detected in financial disclosures or prospectuses, we believe the firm’s shortcomings have the potential to adversely affect investor outcomes. Hence, we welcome DWS' efforts to strengthen governance around ESG integration and communicate more conservatively about its ESG capabilities.
Questionable and unsteady leadership has contributed to the DWS' woes. Previous CEO Asoka Woehrmann, who had spearheaded the firm's ESG push, stepped down in June 2022 as a result of the ESG investigations. His credibility had already been harmed following his use of personal email for business purposes and a large payment made to him by a client when he was head of Deutsche Bank's private-client business before being appointed as DWS' CEO in 2018. His successor Stefan Hoops is the firm's sixth CEO in the past 10 years, highlighting the instability in the firm's top leadership. This appointment also shows the continued influence of its parent company, even after the partial IPO in 2018. Hoops has spent most of his career at Deutsche Bank but has no asset-management background.
Despite all these negative headlines and shaky leadership, DWS has managed to remain quite stable in its investment ranks. The firm has also made strides to gain greater independence. For example, since 2020, bonuses have been linked to the firm's own performance rather than to that of the bank as a whole, which supports alignment and talent retention. Variable remuneration takes into account performance of up to five years.
DWS' vast fund lineup covers all asset classes, including passive strategies, which are offered under the Xtrackers brand. Many offerings don't distinguish themselves, but there are genuine areas of strength among active strategies, and fees are competitive across many funds. While the product development process has been streamlined, and although the firm has launched new strategies at a slower pace, lineup turnover remains a concern as a culture of asset-gathering prevails. New offerings are partly related to an expansion of ESG capabilities, but the firm is also building out its thematic equity, multi-asset, alternatives, and exchange-traded fund range. 
At this stage, we continue to believe that DWS' strengths justify a Parent Pillar rating of Average despite several weaknesses in its stewardship practices, but we will closely monitor the company for further disruption.

Average

Parent

Xtrackers MSCI Emerging Markets ESG Leaders Equity ETF

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Amid expectations of a global economic recovery, emerging markets assets are rebounding and more investors are getting in on the action. They can join the party in environmental, social, and governance (ESG) fashion with the Xtrackers MSCI Emerging Markets ESG Leaders Equity ETF (EMSG).

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