Investment Products and Service Launches

Art by Jackson Epstein

ProShares Launches ETF for Growing Pet Care Firms

ProShares announced a new exchange-traded fund (ETF) targeting the pet care industry.

The ProShares Pet Care ETF, otherwise known by its ticker symbol as PAWZ, exposes public companies in the global pet care industry, the same ones potentially optimizing from the “proliferation of pet ownership, and the emerging trends affecting how investors care for their pets,” according to ProShares.

ProShares says these companies are identified using the methodology of the FactSet Pet Care Index, which consists of 24 companies that “provide exposure to potential growth within the pet care industry.”

To be eligible for the FactSet Pet Care Index, FactSet requires that the company meet at least one of the following criteria: The company’s principal revenue source is from one of eight FactSet Revere Business Industry Classification subindustries—”RBICS subindustries” for short; the company generates at least $1 billion in annual revenue from at least one of the eight RBICS subindustries; or the company’s principal business is identified by FactSet as being pet care related, but for which an appropriate RBICS subindustry has not yet been created (e.g., pet insurance).

Both U.S. and international companies are included in this index, which is rebalanced monthly and reconstituted annually, says ProShares. “At rebalance, the companies whose principal revenue source comes from pet care-related products or services will make up 82.5% of the portfolio, while companies that generate $1 billion or more (but not a principal source) of their revenue from RBICS categories will make up 17.5% of the index. The index uses a modified market cap methodology,” adds the company.

HB&T Reveals Upcoming Sequence of Collective Investment Funds

Hand Benefits & Trust (HB&T), a BPAS company, has created its new series of collective investment funds. The new series, which will invest in BlackRock funds, consists of six passively-managed index strategies. According to HB&T, they will launch as the least expensive index option available with no minimum investment. In addition, the funds are said to be available to qualified retirement plans, and trade on most major recordkeeping platforms.

The new series includes the following funds: HB&T BlackRock Large Cap Equity Index; HB&T BlackRock Mid Cap Equity Index; HB&T BlackRock Small Cap Equity Index; HB&T BlackRock MSCI ACWI ex-US Index; HB&T BlackRock U.S. Aggregate Bond Index; and HB&T BlackRock Short Term Bond Index.

“With this new series, all eligible plan sponsors and their participants can access best-in-class passively managed strategies,” says David Hand, HB&T CEO.

Salt Financial Files Registration for ETF That Pays Investors

In a March 12 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Salt Financial has made registration statements for the Salt Low truBeta US Market exchange-traded fund (ETF).

The fund seeks to track the performance, before fees and expenses, of the Salt Low truBeta US Market Index.

The investment adviser has agreed to waive the fund’s full unitary management fee of 0.29% and to contribute to the fund’s assets an amount equal to an annual rate of 0.05% of the fund’s average daily net assets on the first $100 million in net assets (i.e., up to $50,000 per annum)  until at least April 30, 2020.

The fund uses a passive management (or indexing) approach to track the performance, before fees and expenses, of the Index. The Index was developed in 2018 by Salt Financial LLC, the fund’s investment adviser and index provider, and uses an objective, rules-based methodology to measure the performance of an equal-weighted portfolio of approximately 100 large and mid-capitalization U.S.-listed stocks with the lowest levels of variability in their historical beta calculations (beta variability) and forecasted beta of less than 1.00. Beta is a calculation of an investment’s systematic risk relative to the market.