The white-label platform HANetf today announced a partnership with Kotak Mahindra Asset Management, the international arm of the Kotak Group, regarding the Indo-Pacific defence ETF listed last August on the main European stock exchanges.
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Article created by the editorial staff of ETFWorld.co.uk
Hector McNeil, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of HANetf
The ETF will be renamed the Kotak Indo-Pacific Defence UCITS ETF (ticker: QUAD). The agreement marks Kotak’s entry into the European UCITS ETF market.
The partnership
Kotak Mahindra Asset Management is the Kotak Group division specialising in asset management. The Kotak Group, founded in 1985, is one of India’s leading financial services providers, with operations in commercial banking, personal finance, securities brokerage, investment banking, asset management, insurance and wealth management. As at 31 December 2025, the group managed assets worth $87.55 billion.
The partnership will bring local and operational expertise on defence matters to HANetf in the Indo-Pacific region, where India is assuming a leading strategic and economic role.
Kotak already manages approximately $5 billion in assets through a platform of international investment solutions.
The defence landscape in the Indo-Pacific
The QUAD ETF offers exposure to growth in the defence sector across the Indo-Pacific region, excluding China. Rising geopolitical tensions have triggered a cycle of rearmament in Asia, the largest since the end of the Cold War. Several countries, including India and Japan, are increasing their defence budgets and shifting arms production to domestic suppliers.
Indian companies account for 27.27% of the ETF’s underlying index, confirming the country’s significance in the sector. India currently allocates around $86 billion a year to security, ranking fifth in the world for military spending. The budget for the 2026–2027 financial year has been set at $85.5 billion, a nominal increase of 15% compared to the previous year.
Estimates compiled by HANetf suggest that India’s annual budget could reach around $122 billion by 2030. Independent research by GlobalData forecasts expenditure of around $125.2 billion by the end of the decade.
A growing share of this expansion is being channelled to domestic manufacturers. In the 2024–2025 financial year, defence production in India reached $17.2 billion, representing 18% year-on-year growth and almost double the levels seen in 2020. Government policies, procurement mechanisms favouring domestic suppliers and the expansion of the Positive Indigenisation Lists are contributing to this momentum.
In addition to India, the QUAD ETF includes exposure to South Korea, Japan, Australia, Singapore and Taiwan. Key holdings include Hanwha Aerospace (10.78%), Hyundai Rotem (10.07%), Bharat Electronics (9.28%) and Hindustan Aeronautics (9.26%). The ETF has assets under management of approximately $6.7 million and an expense ratio of 0.59%.
Hector McNeil, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of HANetf, commented: “We are delighted to partner with Kotak, which will bring deep local expertise and first-hand knowledge of one of the world’s most strategically significant defence markets, at a time when the Indo-Pacific is undergoing a profound and sustained rearmament cycle, with India at the centre of this shift. Defence spending is driven not by short-term factors, but by long-term structural dynamics, including regional security requirements, modernisation and a clear policy favouring domestic production. The partnership with Kotak will strengthen the depth of research underpinning the construction of this ETF, particularly in terms of our ability to capitalise on the evolving range of opportunities that may arise.”
Shyam Kumar, President and Head of Kotak International, added: “The collaboration with HANetf highlights our commitment to serving global investors with innovative products. Our decision to collaborate on a thematic ETF focused on defence in such a strategic region reflects our focus on bringing long-term investment themes to international markets. Backed by our deep regional knowledge and research capabilities, we are confident in our ability to support European investors seeking high-quality passive exposure to this rapidly evolving theme within the UCITS framework.”
Source: ETFWorld.co.uk
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