AGEM vs AVXC

AGEMCabrdn Emerging Markets Dividend Active ETF

AVXCAAvantis Emerging Markets ex-China 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.

AVXC The China question, answered by subtraction. Avantis runs its usual emerging-markets playbook (roughly 2,800 stocks of every size, tilted toward the cheap and the profitable) with China left out entirely, for 0.33% a year.

Stated mandate

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

AVXC The fund invests in a broad set of companies across emerging-market countries, excluding China, and spanning all market capitalizations. It seeks higher expected returns by overweighting securities with lower valuations and higher profitability ratios.

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

• AVXC 0.33% a year, about half the typical fee among active EM funds, and the ex-China carve-out costs no more than Avantis charges on its with-China flagship, AVEM.
• Roughly 2,800 holdings spanning all market-cap sizes, so removing China doesn't turn the fund into a concentrated bet on a few large markets.avantisinvestors.com
• Actively run against MSCI Emerging Markets IMI rather than tracking it: the mandate overweights lower-valuation, higher-profitability companies.
• One of the stronger builds in the active emerging-markets group we review, on cost and portfolio construction alike.

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

• AVXC Thinly traded next to the giants of the category, so spreads and limit orders matter more on the way in and the way out.
• Launched in 2024, so the live record is short and the risk picture is still forming.
• Leaving China out is a real departure from standard EM exposure, and the value and small-cap tilts add more distance from a plain cap-weighted index.

Full AGEM profile⁠

Full AVXC profile⁠