Invesco to Close 26 ETFs in Shakeup of Its Listings

Invesco is set to shutter 26 of the more than 240 funds in its exchange-traded fund offering near the end of the first quarter. This is the first large closure announcement of 2023.  

The ETFs in question are scheduled to see their last day of trading on March 30. This marks the issuer’s largest wave of closures since it shuttered more than 40 funds in early 2020. The 26 funds range in size from less than $1 million in assets to $433 million and have combined assets of more than $1.4 billion.  

“This refinement, which only affects 14% of our total Americas product line across CITs, ETFs and mutual funds, or 0.3% of our overall AUM, will create greater capacity for Invesco to invest in high demand product areas and better address the various needs of our clients,” an Invesco spokesperson said.  

Sources: ETF.com and FactSet; data as of 1/24/2023

“For the investors that own these funds, as always, there will be an orderly wind down, and they will get their capital back. But it may be a taxable event for them. Depending on when they bought these funds, the liquidation may cause them to realize a capital gain,” said Elisabeth Kashner, vice president and director of ETF research and analytics at FactSet.

“That lovely feature of ETFs, where you get to control when you take your gains, that doesn't happen when there's a liquidation, you don't get the control. If you're a holder of one of these funds, your choices are sell it now or wait. But it's leaving your portfolio by the end of the first quarter regardless,” she added.

Within Invesco’s U.S.-listed ETF lineup, these funds are a small portion of total assets under management, representing less than half of 1% of the more than $340 billion held by all 242 ETFs trading under the Invesco brand. 

The closures include significant portions of different categories within Invesco’s offering. For example, all but two of the funds in its low-cost, plain vanilla PureBeta family will shutter, leaving just the $106.3 million Invesco PureBeta 0-5 Yr U.S. TIPS ETF (PBTP) and the $2.3 billion Invesco PureBeta MSCI USA ETF (PBUS) out of a group of six funds.  

It’s also closing all four ETFs in its Multi-Asset Allocation lineup and its only two BulletShares covering emerging market debt, not to mention two commodity funds that invest in gold and silver futures.  

The largest fund to close is the Invesco RAFI Strategic Developed ex-US ETF (ISDX), which is part of the four-fund RAFI Strategic family of ETFs. The only fund from that group that will remain in Invesco’s offering after the end of the quarter is the $223.9 million Invesco RAFI Strategic US ETF (IUS). 

Generally, $50 million is enough to keep an ETF from being closed, but when it comes to the largest issuers, such amounts are very small relative to their total assets under management. Kashner and FactSet Senior ETF Analyst Lois Gregson agree that the competitive landscape for the various funds likely played a role in the decision to close them. Gregson further notes that ISDX has similar funds from Charles Schwab and Dimensional Fund Advisors with more assets competing with it in the same segment.  

Three of the funds are nontransparent actively managed ETFs—IVDG, IVSG and IVLC—and are the first such ETFs to close since the innovation was allowed in March 2020. 

In 2020, when Invesco closed a batch of more than 40 funds, ETF closures hit a record of 275 shutdowns. That year’s closures was immediately followed by just 79 in 2021, the lowest level in roughly a decade, before rebounding in 2022 to 145 fund closures in 2022.  

2023 is off to a brisk start, with eight completed closures in just the first few weeks. With this latest development from Invesco, it looks likely to be a robust year for ETF shutdowns. 

Contact Heather Bell at [email protected]