Drones, weed, AI: Exotic ETFs could sweep Europe in new shake-up

European white-label issuer HANetf to list first fund Friday

From helping to bring gold investing to the masses to devising ETFs for short-selling hedge funds, Hector McNeil has been at the vanguard of the passive revolution for the past 20 years.

Now, the 50-year old Yorkshireman is taking on the likes of BlackRock Inc. to shake up the industry in Europe. McNeil wants to fast-track the creation of passive products for wannabe issuers lacking in-house expertise or the stomach for execution risk through his firm HANetf, a white-label provider.

And he has a high-profile backer: the venture-capital arm of Steve Cohen’s Point72 Asset Management LP. A spokesman for the firm confirmed