ILF vs XSOE

ILFBiShares Latin America 40 ETF

XSOEAWisdomTree Emerging Markets ex-State-Owned Enterprises Fund

In short

ILF One of the original ways to own Latin America in a single ticker. Since 2001, ILF has held about 40 of the region's largest listed companies: a concentrated regional slice, not a broad international fund.

XSOE One screen, applied hard: if a government owns more than 20% of a company, XSOE leaves it out. What is left is emerging markets minus the state champions, with country weights pushed back toward the standard EM mix.

Stated mandate

ILF The fund seeks to track an index consisting of 40 of the largest Latin American equities.

XSOE The fund seeks to track the investment results of emerging-market companies that are not state-owned enterprises, defined as companies with no more than 20% government ownership.

Why people hold it

• ILF Launched in 2001, making it one of the longest-running single-ticker routes into Latin American equities, across multiple regional booms and busts.
• A multi-billion-dollar fund that trades actively, so getting in and out is rarely the hard part.
• Simple, rules-based mandate: an index of 40 of the largest Latin American equities. What the label says is what sits in the basket.ishares.com
• Income from those large caps is passed through on a quarterly schedule.

• XSOE The 20% government-ownership cutoff is an index rule, not a manager's judgment call, and the fund has run on it since its 2014 launch.wisdomtree.com
• 0.32% a year, under the typical fund in its emerging-markets peer group, for a screen most broad EM funds never apply.
• After the state-owned names come out, the index pushes country weights back toward where they started, so it stays a filtered EM portfolio rather than a country bet.wisdomtree.com
• A multi-billion-dollar fund spread across roughly 800 stocks, and it has tracked its index closely.

Worth knowing

• ILF At 0.47% a year it costs more than the typical broad international fund (cohort median 0.35%) and well above index giants like VXUS at 0.05%.
• About 40 stocks across a handful of Latin American markets. Concentration cuts both ways, and one country's politics can drive most of the ride.
• The stocks trade in local currencies while the fund is priced in dollars, so exchange rates add a second layer of movement on top of the shares.ishares.com

• XSOE Cheaper broad EM shelf-mates exist (BKEM at 0.11%, XCEM at 0.16%). The screen is what you are paying the difference for.
• Government stakes cluster in banks and energy in EM, so removing them shifts the sector mix toward private-sector names. Expect it to behave differently from a plain EM index.wisdomtree.com
• No country is excluded, so China stays in the mix, unlike ex-China peers VEXC and XCEM. It also sits among the more volatile funds in its peer group.

Full ILF profile⁠

Full XSOE profile⁠