Lazard Hires State Street’s ETF Chief to Cash In on Market Shift

(Bloomberg) -- Lazard Asset Management is hiring a former State Street Global Advisors executive to help drive its foray into the deeply competitive market for actively managed exchange-traded funds.

Robert Forsyth will be the firm’s managing director and global head of ETFs, focused on driving the development and expansion of Lazard’s active ETF platform, according to the company. He will report to Jennifer Ryan, head of Lazard’s North American division.

Forsyth was at State Street for about 10 years and worked across teams encompassing product, investment and sales strategy for their $1 trillion ETF business.

The announcement comes just three months after Lazard launched its first ETF product, with a fund for Australian investors. It now plans to build on that with new ETFs in the US, the company said.

Changing landscape

Lazard’s strategy aims to capitalize on a shift in the market. While active funds represent 43% of all ETF offerings in the US, they manage only 8% of the assets, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. This year though, actively-managed ETFs have attracted close to 30% of inflows across all US-listed ETFs, the data show.

Prominent fund issuers like BlackRock Inc. remain optimistic about the growth of actively-managed ETFs, predicting the category to hit $4 trillion in assets by 2030.