iShares Colombia ETF to Debut Thursday

BlackRock's (NYSE:BLK) iShares unit, the world's largest ETF issuer, plans to introduce the iShares MSCI Colombia Capped ETF on Thursday. The new ETF will trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker "ICOL" and feature an annual expense ratio of 0.61 percent.

ICOL will track the MSCI All Colombia Capped Index, which is a free-float adjusted market capitalization-weighted index. That means no individual component can exceed 25 percent of the index's weight. The index had 25 constituents as of April 30, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

ICOL will be the third ETF devoted exclusively to South America's second-larges economy available to U.S. investors. The oldest and largest is the Global X FTSE Colombia 20 ETF (NYSE:GXG), which has almost $150 million in assets under management. The Market Vectors Colombia ETF (NYSE:COLX) has $2.6 million in AUM.

Both GXG and COLX are heavy on energy, financial services and materials names. GXG allocates almost 59 percent of its weight to those sectors while COLX devotes about 83 percent of its weight to those group. GXG and COLX have annual fees of 0.68 and 0.75 percent, respectively.

ICOL joins successful iShares South America-focused ETFs such as the iShares MSCI Brazil Capped Index Fund (NYSE:EWZ), the iShares MSCI Chile Investable Market Fund (NYSE:ECH) and the iShares MSCI All Peru Capped Index Fund (NYSE:EPU).

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