AVSE vs GEME

AVSEAAvantis Responsible Emerging Markets Equity ETF

GEMECPacific NoS Global EM Equity Active ETF

In short

AVSE Avantis's emerging markets workhorse with a values filter bolted on: the same profitability tilt and thousands-of-stocks build as its flagship EM fund, at the same 0.33% fee, minus the issuers its team flags on ESG grounds.

GEME Emerging markets with no index to hide behind. GEME arrived in 2025 as a stock-picker's EM fund, charging 0.75% in a corner of the market where cheap systematic rivals set the going rate.

Stated mandate

AVSE The fund is an actively managed emerging-markets equity strategy that seeks to identify securities with higher expected returns while excluding issuers that raise concerns under the portfolio team's environmental, social, and governance evaluation.

GEME The Fund seeks long-term capital appreciation.

Why people hold it

• AVSE Charges 0.33% a year, roughly half the typical fee among actively managed emerging markets funds. The cost drag stays out of the way of the strategy.
• The screen trims rather than concentrates: the portfolio still spans thousands of emerging markets stocks, not a short list of approved names.avantisinvestors.com
• Active in the Avantis sense: a systematic tilt toward more profitable companies, not a manager's hunches about which stocks pop next.
• Priced level with Avantis's mainstream EM funds (AVEM, AVXC) and JPMorgan's JEMA at 0.33%, and one of the stronger builds in the active EM group.

• GEME Genuinely active: no declared index, so the portfolio reflects a manager's picks among emerging market companies rather than a benchmark's country and sector weights.
• The prospectus objective is one line, long-term capital appreciation from equities. No income overlay, no thematic tilt, no leverage bolted on.
• Not a launch-week shell. It gathered assets in the hundreds of millions and trades in reasonable size for a fund this young.

Worth knowing

• AVSE Thinly traded next to the index-fund giants of emerging markets, so bid-ask spreads can widen and larger orders need care.
• The ESG exclusions are the portfolio team's own judgment calls, so the holdings and the results will drift from a plain broad EM benchmark.
• Emerging markets equity brings currency swings and country-level political risk, and this fund holds that exposure directly. Pays quarterly.

• GEME At 0.75% it prices above the typical active EM ETF. Systematic peers such as AVEM (0.33%) and DFEM (0.39%) anchor the cheap end of the same shelf.
• It launched in January 2025, so there is no long run of EM booms and busts to judge the process against yet.
• Cash comes back once or twice a year rather than monthly, in line with a capital-appreciation mandate.

Full AVSE profile⁠

Full GEME profile⁠