State Street Global Advisors today launched an international high-yield corporate bond exchange-traded fund, according to the company. The new international ETF will trade on the NYSE Arca under the symbol IJNK and is based off the Barclays Global HY ex US Domiciled 350mn+ Cash Pay Index.

At launch, there is $45 million of net assets under management and the initial share price is $25. By comparison, State Street’s largest high-yield ETF, the Barclays High Yield Bond ETF, under the symbol JNK, has $10.22 billion in net assets, with a share price of $41.05 as of March 11.

The gross-expense ratio of the IJNK is 0.4%, equal to that of JNK, and index characteristics include an average yield to worst of 5.1%, and an effective average maturity of 5.37 years.

The number of holdings is 718, with a strong weighting toward corporate industrials (at 76.13%). Top holdings include Wind Acquisition, SoftBank Corporation, Royal Bank of Scotland, ThyssenKrupp AG and Digicel Limited.

SSgA FM serves as the investment advisor to the fund, with Michael Brunell and Stephan Yeats acting as portfolio managers. – Joy Ferguson