ETF Watch: Dreyfus Requests Exemptive Relief

BNY Mellon subsidiary The Dreyfus Corporation filed a request for exemptive relief with the Securities & Exchange Commission in late September. However, this is not the firm’s first run at the ETF space.

In 2008, the firm teamed up with WisdomTree, subadvising a series of now-defunct fixed-income ETFs that sought to provide money-marketlike exposure to various foreign currencies. Later, in 2010, Dreyfus filed for its own exemptive relief for both passively managed and actively managed ETFs, but nothing ever came of it.

The latest 40-APP filing is fairly standard, leaving open the possibility of index and self-indexed funds covering domestic and foreign equity and fixed-income markets. The filing also mentions 130/30 and long/short funds.

There were not a lot of details on the initial fund Dreyfus intends to launch, but the filing indicated that it would be a large-cap equity ETF.

Dreyfus is just the latest mutual fund firm to stick its toe in the ETF pond. The multifactor smart-beta ETF trend, in particular, has swept a lot of big names into the ETF industry, such as John Hancock, Franklin Templeton and Legg Mason. It’s not clear if Dreyfus will also go the multifactor route.

Contact Heather Bell at [email protected].