Mirae Asset Global Investments, Korea’s leading asset manager, introduced its first target-date exchange-traded fund on Monday, aiming to provide retirees with a high-return investment strategy for long-term income stability.
The asset manager on Monday listed the Tiger TDF2045 ETF on the Korea Exchange, tracking the S&P 500 — one of the benchmark indices for US large-cap stocks, representing around 500 leading US companies.
A target-date fund, or TDF, is a long-term investment vehicle that automatically adjusts its portfolio based on an investor’s life cycle, typically shifting toward lower-risk assets as retirement approaches.
At a press conference Monday, Chief Officer Nathan Nam-ki Kim, heading Mirae Asset Global Investments' ETF portfolio management, said the firm spent three years developing a TDF ETF tailored to Korean investors. The result is the world’s first passive TDF ETF, created in collaboration with S&P.
"With enhanced transparency and lower costs, Tiger TDF2045 ETF serves as the Tiger ETF brand’s 'one-ticket solution' for retirement planning, offering the most intuitive path to financial security," Kim said.
The fund is designed for investors targeting retirement in 2045, following a structured glide path strategy. It starts with a 79 percent allocation to the S&P 500, gradually reducing exposure by 1 percentage point annually until 2040 — five years before the target date. The remainder is invested in secure domestic bonds.
Yoon Byung-ho, head of the asset manager's strategic ETF portfolio management division, highlighted the S&P 500’s strong performance, noting its 508 percent gain since 2005 — outpacing the MSCI World Index’s 335 percent return. The MSCI World Index tracks approximately 1,500 mid-to-large-cap companies across developed markets.
"The S&P 500 is essential to long-term investment in Korean retirement portfolios," Yoon said. "We believe that focusing on the S&P 500 — home to the world’s leading large-cap stocks — will offer the most straightforward path to maximizing returns."
jwc@heraldcorp.com
