Amundi MSCI USA UCITS ETF GBP Hedged Lists New Distributing Class on the London Stock Exchange

Amundi has added a sterling-hedged, income-paying share class to its Core MSCI USA Swap range, with a total expense ratio of 0.07%.

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Article created by the editorial staff of ETFWorld.co.uk

Benoit Sorel Global Head of ETF, Indexing & Smart Beta Amundi ETF

Amundi has listed a new share class of its Core MSCI USA Swap UCITS ETF on the London Stock Exchange: the Amundi Core MSCI USA Swap UCITS ETF GBP Hedged Dist (ISIN LU3332966244), according to the fund’s documentation. The class is denominated in sterling, hedges its US dollar exposure back to GBP, distributes income to investors, and carries a total expense ratio (TER) of 0.07%. It tracks the MSCI USA 100% Hedged to GBP Index and is aimed at UK-based investors who want exposure to US equities without taking on dollar/sterling currency risk.

A new class within Amundi’s Core MSCI USA Swap range

The GBP Hedged Dist class joins an existing line-up of share classes built around the same underlying strategy. Amundi listed the accumulating, unhedged sterling class of the same fund — Amundi Core MSCI USA Swap UCITS ETF Acc (ISIN LU3332965949, TER 0.05%) — on the London Stock Exchange on 22 July 2026, one day after the fund’s debut on Deutsche Börse Xetra.

The new GBP Hedged Dist class carries a higher TER than the unhedged Acc class: 0.07% against 0.05%. This is consistent with the general pattern across currency-hedged ETF share classes, where the cost of running the hedge is typically reflected in a marginally higher fee.

Both share classes sit within Amundi’s “Core” range, the lowest-cost segment of the issuer’s ETF offering, designed around broad market exposures and widely used benchmarks rather than specialised or thematic strategies.

Investment objective and benchmark

According to the fund’s documentation, the sub-fund seeks to replicate, as closely as possible and in both rising and falling markets, the performance of the MSCI USA 100% Hedged to GBP Index. The stated aim is to minimise the tracking error between the sub-fund’s net asset value and the performance of the index, with the anticipated level of tracking error under normal market conditions set out in the fund’s prospectus.

The “100% Hedged to GBP” designation means the index itself, not just the ETF, is constructed to strip out the effect of US dollar/sterling exchange rate movements on the return of the underlying MSCI USA constituents. In practice, the hedge is rolled at regular intervals using forward currency contracts, and the hedge ratio is not necessarily perfect at all times between resets.

The underlying MSCI USA Index — the equity basket to which the hedge is applied — tracks large- and mid-cap US stocks. For context, the unhedged, US dollar-denominated version of the same index comprised 536 constituents and covered around 85% of the free-float-adjusted market capitalisation of the US equity market, according to an MSCI factsheet dated 29 May 2026 cited by ETFWorld.co.uk in July 2026. The same factsheet showed the ten largest constituents accounting for a combined 38.36% of the index, led by Nvidia, Apple and Microsoft, with technology-related sectors representing close to 40% of total weight. These figures describe the equity exposure underlying both the hedged and unhedged versions of the MSCI USA family; they do not represent the return of the GBP-hedged variant itself, which differs from the unhedged index because of the currency hedge.

Replication method

The sub-fund uses synthetic replication through swap contracts, in line with the rest of Amundi’s Core MSCI USA Swap range. The fund holds a substitute basket of assets and exchanges the return on that basket for the return on the reference index with one or more swap counterparties, subject to the UCITS limit on counterparty exposure. This structure is common among Luxembourg-domiciled US equity ETFs, where it can help avoid part of the US dividend withholding tax that would otherwise apply to a fund holding US shares directly, since Luxembourg does not benefit from the US-Ireland tax treaty available to Irish-domiciled funds.

Investors in a swap-based ETF are exposed to counterparty risk on the swap, mitigated but not eliminated by UCITS collateralisation rules, rather than direct exposure to the shares held in the substitute basket.

Why a distributing, currency-hedged class

The combination of features in this listing — sterling denomination, currency hedging and income distribution — targets a specific segment of demand. UK investors and advisers who want US equity exposure but wish to avoid currency risk, and who also want income paid out rather than reinvested, previously had to choose between products that offered only some of these characteristics. Amundi’s existing Core MSCI USA Swap range already included an unhedged, accumulating sterling class; the new listing extends the range to cover the hedged, distributing combination as well.

The choice between a hedged and an unhedged share class has a direct effect on returns: a hedged class removes the currency component of return — positive or negative — associated with dollar/sterling movements, leaving the investor exposed only to the performance of the underlying US equities in local currency terms. An unhedged class leaves the currency effect in place. Neither approach is inherently preferable; the decision depends on the investor’s own currency exposure and views on sterling relative to the dollar.

Conclusions

Amundi has extended its Core MSCI USA Swap UCITS ETF range with a new sterling-hedged, income-distributing share class listed on the London Stock Exchange, carrying a TER of 0.07%, according to the fund’s documentation. The listing follows the same range’s earlier unhedged, accumulating sterling class, which listed on the LSE in July 2026 at a lower TER of 0.05%. Both classes track variants of the MSCI USA Index and use synthetic replication via swap.

For UK-based investors specifically seeking currency-hedged, income-paying exposure to US large- and mid-cap equities, the new class closes a gap in Amundi’s existing sterling-denominated line-up.

Source: ETFWorld.co.uk