Columbia Research Enhanced Core ETF (RECS) Celebrates Five-Year Anniversary, $1B AUM Milestone

The research-based product has attracted over $1 billion in client assets due to consistently strong performance

Columbia Threadneedle Investments recently celebrated the five-year anniversary of its equity exchange-traded fund (ETF)—the Columbia Research Enhanced Core ETF (NYSE Arca: RECS). In the five years since its launch, RECS has attracted more than $1 billion in client assets due to consistently strong performance.

RECS has outperformed its performance benchmark, the Russell 1000 Index^®, through its unique rules-based approach that emphasizes the application of proprietary investment research.¹ This approach aims to optimize the ETF’s core equity exposure by eliminating stocks from the performance benchmark that are rated unfavorably by the Columbia Threadneedle quantitative research team. In doing so, this strategy addresses a key issue expressed by recently surveyed financial advisors -- nearly 9-in-10 advisors feel frustrated with not being able to remove underperforming stocks in their index investments.²

“Our goal when we launched RECS was to take a common-sense research approach to US large capitalization core investing and clearly that goal is still resonating today,” said Marc Zeitoun, Head of North America Product and Business Intelligence. “Five years later, strong returns and positive investor response have encouraged us to further broaden our research-enhanced offering across other asset classes and to offer the strategy in other wrappers, such as retail SMAs.”

Driven by strong performance, RECS boasts a 5-star Overall Morningstar Rating, with its returns falling within the top 10% of Morningstar’s U.S. Large Blend category for the five-year time period ending on September 30, 2024. Launched in September 2019, this ETF offers a cost-effective and tax-efficient solution to investors seeking core equity exposure and has earned a Morningstar Medalist Rating of Silver. RECS has a total expense ratio of 0.15%.³

RECS is managed by Christopher Lo, Head of Managed and Indexed Portfolio Solutions, Jason Wang, Head of Quantitative Research, and Henry Hom, Senior Portfolio Manager. The rules-based approach designed by the team uses Columbia Threadneedle’s proprietary quantitative investment models to evaluate and categorize companies in the Russell 1000 Index^®. These models are designed to rate each company based on quality, value, and catalyst factors, including favorably rated securities while excluding those that do not meet the criteria.

“RECS seeks to generate alpha through the elimination of names that our quantitative models rate unfavorably – an approach that is often overlooked in favor of overweighting stocks with a positive view,” added Lo, who has been managing the Fund since its inception. “As evidenced by it crossing the $1 billion threshold in client assets, RECS is a powerful example of the value that Columbia Threadneedle’s strong quantitative research and investment expertise can generate for investors.”

As of September 30, 2024, the RECS ETF contained 357 US large-cap stocks, across growth and value, each market-capitalization weighted.

Ratings and rankings⁴

About Columbia Threadneedle Investments

Columbia Threadneedle Investments is a leading global asset manager that provides a broad range of investment strategies and solutions for individual, institutional and corporate clients around the world. With more than 2,500 people, including over 650 investment professionals based in North America, Europe and Asia, we manage $642 billion of assets across developed and emerging market equities, fixed income, asset allocation solutions and alternatives.⁵

Columbia Threadneedle Investments is the global asset management group of Ameriprise Financial, Inc. (NYSE: AMP). For more information, please visit columbiathreadneedleus.com.

Columbia Threadneedle Investments (Columbia Threadneedle) is the global brand name of the Columbia and Threadneedle group of companies.

¹ Rules are as defined in the Columbia Threadneedle custom index, the Beta Advantage® Researched Enhanced U.S. Equity Index (the RECS Index)

² Columbia Threadneedle Investments ETF Survey conducted in November 2023 of 172 financial advisors

³ Morningstar, as of September 2024

⁴ Based on Morningstar category: Large Blend, as of September 30, 2024

⁵ As of June 30, 2024

Past performance does not guarantee future results.

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Morningstar category percentile rankings: Morningstar Ranking/Number of Funds in Category displays the Fund's actual rank within its Morningstar Category based on average annual total return and number of funds in that Category. The returns assume reinvestment of dividends and do not reflect any applicable sales charge. Absent expense limitation, total return would be less. Morningstar Percentile Rankings are the Fund's total return rank relative to all funds in the same Morningstar category, where 1 is the highest percentile and 100 is the lowest percentile.

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Columbia funds are distributed by Columbia Management Investment Distributors, Inc., member FINRA, and managed by Columbia Management Investment Advisers, LLC.

Columbia Management Investment Advisers, LLC serves as the investment manager to the ETFs. The ETFs are distributed by ALPS Distributors, Inc., which is not affiliated with Columbia Management Investment Advisers, LLC or its parent company Ameriprise Financial, Inc.

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