LDEM vs OAEM

LDEMAiShares ESG MSCI EM Leaders ETF

OAEMFOneAscent Emerging Markets ETF

In short

LDEM The budget door into strict ESG in emerging markets. LDEM tracks an MSCI index that keeps the best ESG scorers within each sector, and charges 0.16% to do it, well under the going rate in its peer group.

OAEM Most emerging-markets ESG funds are index trackers with a screen bolted on. OAEM goes the other way: an actively managed, concentrated portfolio shaped by OneAscent's faith-based Elevate screen, at a 1.25% net expense ratio.

Stated mandate

LDEM The fund seeks to track an index of emerging-market companies with high environmental, social, and governance characteristics relative to their sector peers.

OAEM The fund's stated objective is to seek long-term capital appreciation.

Why people hold it

• LDEM At 0.16%, it undercuts the typical fee in its ESG emerging-markets peer group by a wide margin, so less of a volatile asset class's return goes to the manager.
• Best-in-class logic: companies are judged against sector peers instead of whole industries getting banned, so the sector mix stays closer to a plain EM fund.ishares.com
• The index caps any single issuer at 5%, a real check in emerging markets, where a handful of giants can crowd out everything else.ishares.com
• No cleverness beyond the screen: a straight index build of roughly 400 names, and one of the tighter mandate fits in its ESG emerging-markets group.

• OAEM Active, not an index with a filter. The team runs fundamental analysis down to a concentrated book of emerging-market companies rather than reweighting a standard EM benchmark.oneascent.com
• The values screen is the product, not a layer: OneAscent's Elevate process weighs business model, stakeholder policies and community impact, and only names that clear it get bought.oneascent.com
• A faith-based brief, narrower than the broad ESG and climate screens the category's index names run (EMXF 0.16%, ESGE 0.25%, EMCS 0.15%, none with a fee waiver in effect).oneascent.com
• Running since 2022 inside a standard 1940 Act ETF wrapper, one of five values-aligned ETFs from a single-focus Birmingham, Alabama shop.oneascent.com

Worth knowing

• LDEM Small asset base and thin trading volume, so spreads can run wider than on the household-name emerging-markets funds.
• Distributions land once or twice a year rather than quarterly, so income arrives in lumps.
• Sibling ESGE runs the looser ESG Aware screen at 0.25%. LDEM costs less and screens harder, which means a narrower, more exclusionary lineup.

• OAEM Cost is the trade-off: 1.25% net (1.22% gross, no waiver in effect) sits above the median of the 12 funds in its category, where index rivals like EMCS charge 0.15%.
• Thinly traded with a modest asset base, so trading costs can run wider than at the category's index heavyweights.
• No index to hug. A concentrated active portfolio can diverge sharply from broad emerging-markets benchmarks, in either direction, and distributions land once or twice a year.oneascent.com

Full LDEM profile⁠

Full OAEM profile⁠