AGEM vs AVEM

AGEMCabrdn Emerging Markets Dividend Active ETF

AVEMAAvantis Emerging Markets Equity ETF

In short

AGEM A 1990s-vintage emerging markets dividend strategy that traded its mutual fund shell for an ETF in February 2025. Same hunt as always: EM companies paying income today that may keep raising it, now priced intraday.

AVEM Emerging markets taken whole: roughly 3,900 stocks, large down to small, with an active tilt toward cheaper and more profitable companies. Avantis charges about half the typical active EM fee to do it.

Stated mandate

AGEM The Fund seeks total return through income and long-term capital appreciation.

AVEM Seeks long-term capital appreciation by investing in a broad range of companies across emerging-market countries and all market capitalizations.

Why people hold it

• AGEM 0.70% net of a waiver through February 28, 2027, against a 1.18% gross fee. That sits near the category median among 27 active EM equity funds.
• The 80% dividend mandate is written into the prospectus, not implied: at least 80% of net assets in EM companies that pay dividend income, filtered by a quality assessment.aberdeeninvestments.com
• Roughly 90 names rather than index-wide sprawl, with distributions paid quarterly.aberdeeninvestments.com
• The strategy predates the wrapper. It ran as the abrdn Emerging Markets Dividend Fund, with share class history going back to the 1990s, before the ETF conversion on February 18, 2025.aberdeeninvestments.com

• AVEM Fee is 0.33% a year against a 0.65% median for active emerging-markets funds, so the active tilt starts from a low-cost base.
• Owns roughly 3,900 names across the MSCI Emerging Markets IMI universe, including small caps, rather than a short stock-picker's list.avantisinvestors.com
• Active, but rules-driven: the portfolio leans toward lower valuations and higher profitability instead of relying on manager hunches.
• Running since 2019 and now a multi-billion-dollar, actively traded fund. One of the strongest implementations in its emerging-markets peer group.

Worth knowing

• AGEM The systematic crowd is cheaper: AVEM charges 0.33% and DFEM 0.39%, both unwaived. Human stock picking for dividends is the thing you are paying extra for.
• Gross fee is 1.18%. What you pay past February 28, 2027 depends on Aberdeen extending the waiver.
• Thinly traded next to the giant EM funds, which can mean wider spreads, and its record inside the ETF wrapper only starts in 2025.aberdeeninvestments.com

• AVEM Emerging-market equity is a bumpy asset class, and returns arrive in dollars, so local currency swings add a second layer of movement.
• The value and profitability tilts are the whole point, which means the fund is built to drift from a plain market-cap EM index, sometimes for long stretches.
• No China carve-out: this one takes the full EM opportunity set. Avantis runs AVXC on the same approach for those who want it without China.

Full AGEM profile⁠

Full AVEM profile⁠