GERMANY - Andreas Fehrenbach, chief executive of Indexchange, has resigned after just one year in his post.

He will be replaced by Jennifer Grancio, head of distribution at ETF provider iShares Europe, owned by Indexchange's parent Barclays Global Investors (BGI).

In a statement, Indexchange said Fehrenbach would leave on September 30 to "pursue challenges outside the company" and, contacted by IPE, Fehrenbach said he was unable to comment further on his resignation.

Grancio has worked for BGI since 1998, having built the company's ETF business  - now known as iShares - in the US and Europe as director of marketing and business strategy.

BGI's iShares unit recruited Fehrenbach in October 2006 from German asset manager Activest, which was later absorbed by Pioneer Investments. A month after his arrival, BGI paid €240m to acquire Indexchange and merge that business with iShares in Germany.

BGI's European ETF business currently has a volume of €39bn, representing virtually half of the total market for these products.

News of Fehrenbach's resignation comes just days after DekaBank, the asset manager for German savings banks (Sparkassen), said it would launch ETFs for institutional clients in the first quarter of 2008.

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