3%-4% Yielding Global Dividend Aristocrats UCITS ETF (GLDV) – Investment Moats

The global version is the State Street® SPDR® S&P® Global Dividend Aristocrats UCITS ETF.

It is:

1. Irish domiciled so has its tax efficiency. (0% dividend withholding tax from fund to investor. Withholding from securities to fund would depend on domicile of the underlying securities, whether they have dual taxation treaty with Ireland and if the treaty reduces withholding. Ireland estate tax for non-residents is 0%)
2. Distributing class so it pays out a distribution which from what we observe is about 3% to 4%
3. Total expense ratio: 0.45%
4. Has CHF, EUR, GBP and USD version.
5. The USD ticker is GLDV, listed in the LSE, Borsa Italiana and SIX Swiss Exchange.
6. The EUR ticker is ZPRG
7. the GBP ticker is GBDV

It’s AUM is currently $1.6 billion. Very popular!

GLDV’s Methodology is Similar to UDVD

I think this is not too surprising there. You can check out what I wrote about UDVD’s methodology to get a good idea.

Performance of the SPDR® S&P® Global Dividend Aristocrats UCITS ETF

Here is the historical performance to End May 2026:

GLDV was incepted slightly later than UDVD in May 2013 but I think it is still a pretty good period. The returns are lower than UDVD.

If you are curious about its performance versus the MSCI World I put the chart below:

These includes dividends. The MSCI World grew almost 3 times more.

I decide to put my GGRA which is a quality dividend growth strategy based on global market into the mix:

This chart starts later in 2016, because GGRA was incepted later. Notice that dividend growth actually kept pace with the MSCI World much better. It kind of make you question if Dividend Aristocrat actually screens out quality stocks well enough.

This heat map shows the performance month by month:

The drawdowns are actually pretty good. Not as good as UDVD but I felt it is something people can live with.

5-Years Rolling Returns:

The median returns look low at 4%.

For info the worst 5 year return for UDVD is about 4%.

NAV Is Growing (More slowly than the US Aristocrat ETF) Despite payout out the Dividend

Risk Metrics

I compared the metrics of GLDV against those recent funds that I provided.

Allianz Global High Payout is also a 100% global equity fund focus on Income. You realize how alike their metrics is.

An Initial 3% to 4% Volatile Income Distribution that is Slow Growing

Finally here is how the dividend distribution look:

I say it is pretty consistent. $1.18 then to $1.23 then to $1.51.

For sure there is some growth.

If you examine the usually prevailing yield you would notice that its higher than UDVD. This may make you feel happier. The growth over this 10 years is about 2.5% p.a. UDVD’s dividend growth is 5.6% p.a.

To be fair 2025 was an exceptional dividend growth year and we are not sure if the income will be maintained.

You Might Want to Check Out Some Other Income Distribution Fund Profile I did in the past

You might be interested to take a look at some of the funds that I use Skadi to generate:

1. iShares Asia Pacific UCITS Dividend ETF (IAPD)
2. Allianz Global High Payout Fund
3. Schroder Asian Growth Fund
4. SPDR S&P US Dividend Aristocrats UCITS ETF (UDVD)

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