Widely reported..and excuse our delayed tape i.e. dissemination.

Excerpt courtesy of IndexUniverse

Vanguard, the world’s biggest mutual fund company, has decided to segue away from some MSCI indexes over the next several months in favor of benchmarks created by FTSE. The move was motivated in part by lower index licensing costs and will involve its $67 billion Vanguard MSCI Emerging Markets ETF (NYSEArca: VWO).

Vanguard’s switch affects six international equity funds that had total assets of $170 billion as of Aug. 31, FTSE said today in a press release, noting the transaction was the largest ever international index-provider switch. The switch leaves iShares, the world’s biggest ETF firm, as the ETF firm with the deepest ties to MSCI.

The six funds will change to benchmarks in the FTSE Global Equity Index Series, replacing MSCI, and VWO and the index mutual fund of which it is part will be based on the FTSE Emerging Index, FTSE said. One huge difference is the absence of South Korea from the FTSE index, while the MSCI index weights the country at around 15 percent.

In its own press release, Vanguard said that in addition to the six international benchmarks moving to FTSE indexes, it also plans to switch indexes on 16 U.S. stock and balanced index funds to benchmarks developed by the University of Chicago’s Center for Research in Security Prices (CRSP)—a leading provider of research-quality, historical market data and returns. The existing indexes on these U.S.-focused funds are also provided by MSCI.

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