The Atlantic hurricane season is in full swing, and a new exchange-traded fund that focuses on disaster recovery has launched just in time for it.
The first-of-its-kind Procure Disaster Recovery Strategy ETF invests in companies working to reduce risk and motivate sustainable recovery from natural disasters around the world.
“Our partners at VettaFi and the team that helped construct this index looked at things like hurricanes, floods, droughts, wildfires, tornadoes — natural disasters that are occurring all around the globe — and what companies are actually stepping up to help us in those efforts,” ProcureAM CEO Andrew Chanin told CNBC’s “ETF Edge” this week.
The ETF, which trades under the ticker FEMA, bundles companies across sectors including industrials, energy and materials. “These are the companies that really help bring our lives back to normal when we need them most,” Chanin said.
Holdings in the FEMA ETF include communications tech company Fujitsu, risk assessment firm Verisk Analytics, Jacobs Engineering Group and cloud computing firm VMware.
Chanin calls the ETF “a very diversified basket,” including companies in various industries that work on disaster prevention as well as recovery.
Separately, he told CNBC that creation of the FEMA ETF was inspired by Hurricane Katrina, which hit the Gulf Coast in 2005. While attending school at Tulane University in New Orleans, Chanin considered the financial and human tolls that come with major natural disasters.
“One of the first things I did when I was down in New Orleans, when we heard Hurricane Katrina coming, was everyone was going to Home Depot to buy plywood. And, then you need to go and you need to purchase more stuff — whether it’s shingles, whether it’s things to repair, whether it’s paint — after these disasters,” Chanin said. “It’s a wide range of companies that are all involved throughout different parts of the life cycle.”
Since 1980, the U.S. has undergone 323 weather and climate disasters totaling $2.2 trillion in costs, according to the National Centers for Environmental Information, an agency operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Since its launch on June 1, the FEMA ETF is off about 11%.