ETF Watch: UBS To Offer Clients NextShares
Financial services powerhouse will provide NextShares through its financial advisor network.
A recent press release from UBS Financial Services announced that the full-service wealth manager will offer Eaton Vance’s NextShares through its financial advisors. The NextShares are actively managed funds based on a patented structure that Eaton Vance acquired from ETF icon Gary Gastineau and that are similar to ETFs in that they can be traded intraday. More importantly, they do not have to disclose their holdings on a daily basis, like ETFs must do.
The nontransparent active management aspect of the NextShares caused quite a bit of buzz, as many have argued over the years that the reason a lot of active management firms haven’t entered the ETF space is because they don’t want to disclose their daily holdings. Essentially, Eaton Vance’s NextShares subsidiary licenses the product structure to other firms, which then launch actively managed funds based on it. The funds list on the Nasdaq stock exchange, with the first funds in the family making their debut in February.
Although other asset managers offer NextShares Funds, with offices in more than 50 countries, UBS is the biggest firm to sign on to do so, and according to the press release, the first full-service wealth manager.
The list of firms planning to launch NextShares funds includes ALPS Advisors, American Beacon, Gabelli Funds, Hartford Funds and Principal, among others.
Contact Heather Bell at [email protected].