BlackRock Launches iShares MSCI World Sector & Country Neutral Equal Weight UCITS ETF

Manuela Sperandeo, Co-Head of iShares Europe at BlackRock

• First to market with an MSCI World methodology that maintains country and sector neutrality
• Provides greater access to potentially undervalued companies

The fund tracks the MSCI Equal Weighted Country and Sector Neutral Index, which maintains the parent index’s weighting to countries and sectors. This could enable the strategy to be used as a core building block for portfolios or as an alternative to broad exposure for individual investors.

Investor demand for globally exposed ETFs has risen strongly in 2025 with the top 3 European listed ETFs by net new business this year exposed to MSCI World.

The growing dominance of mega-cap stocks, particularly in the U.S. has underscored the need for alternatives to traditional market-cap exposure.

The top 10 stocks account for 36% of the U.S. market, 19% of the European market, and 21% of the Pacific market.

While standard equal-weighting can help address concentration at the security level, applying the approach to a global index may unintentionally introduce significant country and sector tilts.

BlackRock’s ETF, with a TER of 0.20%, is the first to the European market with an index methodology that maintains country and sector neutrality for the MSCI World exposure.

As a result, the ETF maintains the large and important U.S. weighting of the parent index while offering investors greater access to companies in regions outside the U.S., reducing concentration risk and offering a true size play.

Manuela Sperandeo, Co-Head of iShares Europe at BlackRock, said: “MSCI World is a critical exposure for millions of European investors. iShares’ approach gives investors greater choice through an innovative solution appropriate for the breadth of exposure.”