iShares MSCI Japan SRI UCITS ETF (SUJP.L) is an exchange-traded fund that seeks to track the performance of the MSCI Japan SRI Select Reduced Fossil Fuels Index, comprising Japanese large- and mid-cap companies screened for high environmental, social and governance (ESG) ratings and reduced exposure to fossil fuels; it employs full physical replication by holding all index constituents, including top holdings such as Sony Group Corp, Hitachi Ltd, Tokyo Electron Ltd, Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Inc and Tokio Marine Holdings Inc; the fund offers accumulating share classes in USD, GBP and EUR, with a total expense ratio of 0.20% and assets under management exceeding EUR 500 million.
The ETF, part of iShares IV Public Limited Company and managed by BlackRock, was launched on March 6, 2017, and is domiciled in Ireland with listings on major exchanges including London Stock Exchange, Euronext Amsterdam, Deutsche Boerse Xetra, Borsa Italiana and SIX Swiss Exchange; it targets institutional and retail investors seeking sustainable exposure to Japanese equities across sectors like industrials, consumer discretionary, financials and technology, with nearly 100% allocation to Japanese stocks.
In June 2024, the benchmark index underwent a significant enhancement to improve transparency by removing ESG trend considerations from security rankings, enhance diversification through a revised single-stock cap of +3% relative to the parent MSCI Japan Index and an 18% absolute cap, and introduce a +/-1% sector weight deviation limit versus the parent index; these changes, detailed in shareholder notifications and reflected in updated prospectuses, aimed to reduce tracking error and align more closely with broader Japanese market dynamics while maintaining stringent SRI criteria.