WHEATON, Ill., Nov. 20, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Innovator Capital Management, LLC (“Innovator”), the pioneer of Defined Outcome ETFs™ and a leader in risk-managed equity solutions, today announced the launch of the Innovator International Developed Equity Managed Floor ETF® (IFLR), expanding the firm’s rapidly growing suite of Managed Floor ETFs® into the international equity category for the first time.
IFLR is designed to help advisors keep clients invested in international equities by strategically seeking to protect against catastrophic market losses that may derail financial plans. The fund targets 70–80% participation with international developed equity upside while aiming to limit annual losses to approximately 8–12%, before fees and expenses.
The new fund is sub-advised by Parametric, a global leader in options-based implementation with more than $650 billion in assets under management (AUM) as of September 30, 2025.
Why IFLR? Meeting Rising Demand for Risk-Managed Equity Exposure
With the majority of U.S. wealth concentrated among pre-retirees and retirees, demand for solutions that seek to mitigate downside risk without forgoing long-term growth has surged. Traditional tools such as annuities and hedged-equity strategies often come with drawbacks—limited liquidity, higher fees, credit risk, or unpredictable protection levels.
Managed Floor ETFs® seek to overcome these challenges by aiming to delivering risk-mitigation inside the transparency and liquidity of the ETF wrapper.
Potential Benefits of Innovator Managed Floor ETFs®
- Helps clients stay invested with a built-in mechanism that seeks to avoid catastrophic annual losses.
- Provides higher growth potential than traditional defensive allocations such as fixed income or low-volatility strategies.
- Allows consistent equity participation, targeting 70–80% upside participation with international developed equities.
Why International Equities — and Why Now?
The equity portfolio provides exposure to 21 developed international markets and more than 690 companies not found in U.S. indexes. These markets offer powerful diversification benefits driven by distinct economic cycles, policy differences, currency movements, and unique sector exposures.
After 15 years of U.S. market dominance—outperforming international equities by more than 550% cumulatively1—many investors are reassessing global allocations as signs of a potential regime shift emerge. International markets today trade at attractive valuations, with leadership beginning to broaden beyond U.S. megacaps.
At the same time, international equities have historically experienced deeper drawdowns than U.S. equities, a pattern highlighting the desire for a risk-managed approach like the Managed Floor design.
A Proven Framework for Downside Risk Management
IFLR utilizes Innovator’s established Managed Floor architecture, combining:
- Physical Equity Exposure — A diversified basket of international developed stock.
- Purchased Put Options — A series of put protection form the “floor,” resetting quarterly as markets fluctuate.
- Dynamic Call-Writing Strategy — Short-dated call options written to help fund downside protection while preserving meaningful upside—particularly important following market pullbacks.
This structure seeks to offer conservative equity exposure, allowing investors to remain allocated to international stocks with built-in guardrails against severe market downturns.
Fund Details
New ETF:
- Innovator International Developed Equity Managed Floor ETF® (IFLR)
- Equity Exposure: International Developed
- Target Upside Participation: 70–80%
- Target Floor: ~8–12% maximum annual loss
- Sub-adviser: Parametric
- Expense Ratio: 0.89%
Learn More
For more information on IFLR and Innovator’s full suite of ETF offerings, visit innovatoretfs.com.
About Innovator Capital Management, LLC
Founded by Bruce Bond and John Southard—pioneers behind the PowerShares ETF family—Innovator created the world’s first Buffer ETFs™ in 2018 and has since built the largest suite of Defined Outcome ETFs™, spanning six asset classes. Innovator now manages more than $29 billion in AUM as of October 31, 2025, and continues to transform how advisors approach risk-managed equity exposure.
1 Source: Morningstar, Innovator, Data from 10/31/2009 – 11/30/2024. This figure represents the cumulative outperformance of the S&P 500 Index over the MSCI EAFE Index during the time period analyzed. Past performance is not necessarily indicative of futures results. One cannot invest directly in an index. Index performance does not account for fees and expenses.
The MSCI EAFE Index is designed to represent the performance of large and mid-cap securities across 21 developed markets excluding the United States and Canada.
The Fund will target an annual maximum loss of approximately 8%-12% and seeks to participate in approximately 70% - 80% of the annual returns of the Solactive GBS Developed Markets ex North America Large & Mid Cap Index. The annual maximum loss and participation rates are stated before fees and expenses and are not guaranteed.
The Fund seeks to provide risk-managed investment exposure to the equity securities represented by the Solactive GBS Developed Markets ex North America Large & Mid Cap Index (Index) through its hedging strategy. There is no guarantee that the Fund will be successful in implementing its strategy to provide a hedged market exposure. The Fund seeks to achieve its investment objective by purchasing a series of four, one year Flex Options packages with "laddered" expiration dates that are 3 months apart. The Fund will also systemically sell short dated call option contracts, which have an expiration date of approximately two weeks, with an objective of generating incremental returns above and beyond the premium outlay of the protective put option contracts. The Fund does not provide principal protection or non-principal protection, and an investor may experience significant losses on their investment. In a market environment where the Index is generally appreciating, the Fund may underperform the index and/or similarly situated funds.
The Sub-Adviser will seek to "ladder" the Fund's option contracts by entering into new purchased put option contracts packages every three-months. After such put option contracts expire, the Fund will enter into new put option contracts with one-year expiration dates that are staggered every three months.
As a result of the Fund's laddered investment approach, on an ongoing basis the Fund will experience investment floors that are expected to be greater or less than the 10% floor provided by an individual Options Portfolio.
The Fund seeks to provide capital appreciation while seeking to limit the amount of losses experienced by investors.
Because the Fund ladders its option contracts and the Fund's put option contracts will have different terms (including expiration dates), different tranches of put option contracts may produce different returns, the effect of which may be to reduce the Fund's sought-after protection. Therefore, at any given moment the Fund may not receive the benefit of the sought-after protection on losses that could be available from Options Portfolio with a single expiration date.
Non-U.S. Securities Risk. Non-U.S. securities are subject to higher volatility than securities of domestic issuers due to possible adverse political, social or economic developments, restrictions on foreign investment or exchange of securities, lack of liquidity, currency exchange rates, excessive taxation, government seizure of assets, different legal or accounting standards, and less government supervision and regulation of securities exchanges in foreign countries.
FLEX Options Risk. The Fund will utilize FLEX Options issued and guaranteed for settlement by the Options Clearing Corporation (OCC). In the unlikely event that the OCC becomes insolvent or is otherwise unable to meet its settlement obligations, the Fund could suffer significant losses. Additionally, FLEX Options may be less liquid than standard options. In a less liquid market for the FLEX Options, the Fund may have difficulty closing out certain FLEX Options positions at desired times and prices. The values of FLEX Options do not increase or decrease at the same rate as the reference asset and may vary due to factors other than the price of reference asset.
The Fund’s investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses should be considered carefully before investing. The prospectus and summary prospectus contain this and other important information, and it may be obtained at innovatoretfs.com. Read it carefully before investing.
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Investing involves risk. Loss of principal is possible. Innovator ETFs® are distributed by Foreside Fund Services, LLC.
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Frank Taylor
Frank@dlpr.com
646 808 3647
