Horizons ETF Wins William F. Sharpe Award for Best ETF Innovation

TORONTO, Dec. 10, 2012 /CNW/ - The Horizons Morningstar Hedge Fund Index ETF ("HHF"), a Canadian-listed ETF offered by Horizons Exchange Traded Funds Inc., ("Horizons ETFs), which gives investors exposure to the Morningstar^® Broad Hedge Fund Index^SM (the "Index"), has been awarded one of the prestigious 2012 William F. Sharpe Indexing Achievement Awards.

Winners of the 2012 William F. Sharpe Indexing Achievement Awards were announced during the Global Indexing & ETFs conference in Phoenix, Arizona.  HHF was given the award for Best ETF Innovation, which recognizes outstanding innovation in ETF development.

"We are very honoured to be recognized for such a high profile award. The William F. Sharpe awards are essentially the Oscars of indexing and ETF investing." said Howard Atkinson, CEO of Horizons ETFs. "This is a Canadian made ETF solution that is being recognized as a groundbreaking innovation, which effectively gives investors index exposure to the global hedge fund universe - something which was thought of as impossible not too long ago."

The Horizons Morningstar Hedge Fund Index ETF seeks investment results, before fees, expenses, distributions, brokerage commissions and other transaction costs, that replicate the performance of the Index, hedged to the Canadian dollar.

The Index is a broad-based hedge fund index developed by Morningstar, Inc., which contains more than 500 constituent hedge funds. The Index seeks to capture the performance and behaviour of highly liquid hedge funds offering exposure to a wide variety of core and category trading strategies, but is itself not investable.

"Morningstar has, in our view, the best of the best hedge fund indices, and this index captures the most important aspects of investing in hedge funds, such as absolute returns, portfolio diversification and lower volatility," said Mr. Atkinson. "HHF uses an innovative hedge fund replication strategy initially developed by Innocap Investment Management Inc. and then implemented by National Bank of Canada, which allows investors to get similar exposure to the returns of the Morningstar^® Broad Hedge Fund Index^SM."

HHF does not invest directly in the constituent hedge funds of the Index. Instead, it seeks to replicate, as closely as possible, the performance of the Index using an innovative replication strategy licensed from National Bank of Canada, which is implemented by Fiera Capital Corporation, the sub-advisor to HHF. The replication strategy uses liquid futures contracts on several different asset classes, including equity indices, currencies, fixed income securities and commodities.

"As developers of the hedge fund index replication program used by HHF, we are proud HHF won such a prestigious award as the W.F. Sharpe Indexing Award," said Pierre Laroche, National Bank's Managing Director of Research and Development for Derivative Products. "Over the last few years, we worked hard to refine our investment approach such that HHF can now be considered as the leader of its category because it merges three unique features: (1) it targets a sound hedge fund index (the Morningstar^® Broad Hedge Fund Index^SM), (2) it uses a sophisticated yet robust  replication model that is well adapted to the context of hedge fund investing and (3) it uses the most diversified set of return-generating futures in its category."

In addition to winning the award, HHF was also a finalist in the ETF Product of the Year category. The index replication process used by HHF was nominated for Best Indexing Product. "The vast majority of Canadian investors cannot invest in privately offered hedge funds, but through the innovative replication process developed by Pierre and his team they now have a cost-effective way to gain diverse hedge fund-type exposure," Mr. Atkinson said.

HHF is not sponsored, endorsed, sold, or promoted by Morningstar, Inc. or any of its affiliates and none of these parties make any representation, warranty or condition regarding the advisability of buying, selling or holding units of HHF. Morningstar^® and Morningstar^® Broad Hedge Fund Index^SM are registered trademarks of Morningstar, Inc. These marks have been licensed for certain purposes by AlphaPro Management Inc. ("AlphaPro"). Complete trademark and service-mark information is available at: www.horizonsetfs.com/pub/en/Trademark.aspx.

Commissions, trailing commissions, management fees and expenses all may be associated with an investment in HHF which is managed by AlphaPro. HHF is not guaranteed, its values change frequently and past performance may not be repeated. HHF uses leveraged investment techniques that magnify gains and losses and which may result in greater volatility in value and could be subject to aggressive investment risk and price volatility risk. Please read the prospectus before investing.

About Horizons Exchange Traded Funds Inc. (www.horizonsetfs.com)

Horizons ETFs is an innovative financial services company offering the Horizons ETFs family of ETFs. The Horizons ETFs family includes a broadly diversified range of investment tools with solutions for investors of all experience levels to meet their investment objectives in a variety of market conditions. With approximately $3.5 billion in assets under management and 79 ETFs listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange, the Horizons ETFs family makes up one of the largest families of ETFs in Canada. Horizons ETFs is a subsidiary of Horizons ETFs Management (Canada) Inc. and a member of the Mirae Asset Financial Group.

SOURCE: Horizons Exchange Traded Funds Inc.

Howard Atkinson, CEO, Horizons Exchange Traded Funds Inc., [phone] [email protected]