NYSE Active ETF Updates

Q&A with ACA Foreside

This week we sit down with Joseph Higgins at ACA Foreside to discuss the company’s views and support of the active ETF market.

ACA Foreside is a leading provider in legal underwriting services for ETFs, servicing over 150 issuers across more than 850 ETFs. For those that aren’t familiar, what role does ACA Foreside play in the ETF ecosystem?

There are two different ways we work with our global client base. There is what we provide in our formal role as legal underwriter, working with our clients on a day-to-day basis, and how we partner with clients from a consultative standpoint.

ACA Foreside provides a critical vendor solution that needs to be in place to launch and operate an ETF. Every ETF requires our role as the Broker-Dealer to serve as a Legal Underwriter. As a result, most ETF issuers outsource this function to us based on our scale and presence in the marketplace.

As part of the legal underwriter role, we partner with our client’s marketing and compliance teams to review and approve all ETF marketing material. In addition to this, we facilitate, negotiate, and maintain all Authorized Participant (AP) agreements and work with capital markets teams to review and affirm all AP orders in the relevant AP Portal.

We also provide Registered Rep Licensing, Series 7, 63, and 24, among others, for our client’s sales staff. Since an ETF is considered a security, if our client’s sales team would like to market their ETF more broadly, we would hold their FINRA licenses within our in-house Broker-Dealer and provide the necessary compliance oversight. Currently, ACA holds over 2,000 rep licenses across 200+ managers globally.

Foreside merged with ACA Global last year to better serve issuers and prospects with governance, risk and compliance solutions. How can the combined entity better serve asset managers and how does it position the firm for the continued growth of the ETF industry?

The Foreside brand has successfully established itself as the gold standard for our role in the ETF Industry. ACA Group has a long-standing reputation as the compliance gold standard for the largest asset managers in the world. Today, we are a combined entity with over 6,000 clients, and asset managers continue to rely on us and benefit from these end-to-end outsourced solutions.

ACA’s new CEO, Patrick Olson, formerly the COO and Chief Product Officer at BlackRock, has energized our ETF solutions and intricately understands our client base. He continuously echoes ACA’s commitment to our role in the ETF industry and the key role we play for clients.

By servicing such a large client base, ACA Foreside has a unique vantage point across the ETF ecosystem. What are the key trends and/or questions you are hearing from clients and prospects today?

As the largest third-party legal underwriter in the U.S., ACA Foreside has a front row seat to all trends occurring in the ETF space. Outside of the more obvious trends we are all seeing, one trend to highlight is the growth of turn-key or white-label ETF platforms. These platforms historically were leveraged for smaller entrants in the ETF space. Today, we are seeing some of the larger asset managers, who historically would have created their own ETF trust, now filing under turn-key ETF trusts. Another emerging trend is the interest from alternative managers with potential SMA to ETF conversions. These are two trends driving current conversations we are having with our clients.

ACA Foreside has long supported active managers in the ETF industry. That said, how has the industry’s rapid growth impacted your business and service offerings?

ACA Foreside is uniquely positioned at the center of the ETF ecosystem as an agnostic partner, allowing us to serve as a valuable resource or consultant for our clients as they evaluate the ETF landscape. As a result, we help our clients navigate the ETF ecosystem by outlining the industry's structure and making appropriate introductions.

The rapid growth of active ETFs has propelled us to evolve and refine our services, focusing on regulatory compliance, operational efficiency, tailored solutions, and providing valuable guidance to our clients. We remain committed to responding and adapting to industry shifts and meeting the demands of an ever-expanding and dynamic ETF market.

Lastly, what guidance would you provide sponsors as they consider expanding their product lineup to include actively managed ETFs?

Consider your distribution plan and how your ETFs will be sold. Many of our clients are launching to solve a need for their underlying clients or prospects. Start there. ETFs are said to be sold and not bought, so at the very least, hire an ETF specialist and capital markets person.

Lastly, rely on your service partners. Our clients are typically elated by all the valuable advice we and our partner firms provide but quickly understand that we are doing this in the spirit of the ETF itself. We are all students and advocates of the product and have made various bets on its growth.

Before investing in any mutual fund or exchange-traded fund, you should consider its investment objectives, risks, charges, and expenses.

Contact Fidelity for a prospectus, an offering circular, or, if available, a summary prospectus containing this information. Read it carefully.

*This ETF is different from traditional ETFs. Traditional ETFs tell the public what assets they hold each day. This ETF will not. This may create additional risks for your investment. For example: You may have to pay more money to trade the ETF’s shares. This ETF will provide less information to traders, who tend to charge more for trades when they have less information. The price you pay to buy ETF shares on an exchange may not match the value of the ETF’s portfolio. The same is true when you sell shares. These price differences may be greater for this ETF compared to other ETFs because it provides less information to traders. These additional risks may be even greater in bad or uncertain market conditions. The ETF will publish on its website each day a “Tracking Basket” designed to help trading in shares of the ETF. While the Tracking Basket includes some of the ETF’s holdings, it is not the ETF’s actual portfolio. The differences between this ETF and other ETFs may also have advantages. By keeping certain information about the ETF secret, this ETF may face less risk that other traders can predict or copy its investment strategy. This may improve the ETF’s performance. If other traders are able to copy or predict the ETF’s investment strategy, however, this may hurt the ETF’s performance. For additional information regarding the unique attributes and risks of the ETF, see section below. Additional Active ETF Disclosure: The objective of the actively managed ETF Tracking Basket is to construct a portfolio of stocks and representative index ETFs that tracks the daily performance of an actively managed ETF without exposing current holdings, trading activities, or internal equity research. The Tracking Basket is designed to conceal any nonpublic information about the underlying portfolio and only uses the Fund’s latest publicly disclosed holdings, representative ETFs, and the publicly known daily performance in its construction. You can gain access to the Tracking Basket and the Tracking Basket Weight overlap on Fidelity.com or i.Fidelity.com. Although the Tracking Basket is intended to provide investors with enough information to allow for an effective arbitrage mechanism that will keep the market price of the Fund at or close to the underlying NAV per share of the Fund, there is a risk (which may increase during periods of market disruption or volatility) that market prices will vary significantly from the underlying NAV of the Fund; ETFs trading on the basis of a published Tracking Basket may trade at a wider bid/ask spread than ETFs that publish their portfolios on a daily basis, especially during periods of market disruption or volatility, and, therefore, may cost investors more to trade, and although the Fund seeks to benefit from keeping its portfolio information secret, market participants may attempt to use the Tracking Basket to identify a Fund’s trading strategy, which, if successful, could result in such market participants engaging in certain predatory trading practices that may have the potential to harm the Fund and its shareholders. Because shares are traded in the secondary market, a broker may charge a commission to execute a transaction in shares, and an investor may incur the cost of the spread between the price at which a dealer will buy shares and the price at which a dealer will sell shares. For more information on each fund, please visit the individual product pages. The NYSE and Fidelity Investments are independent entities and are not legally affiliated. Fidelity Brokerage Services LLC, Member NYSE, SIPC, 900 Salem Street, Smithfield, RI 02917 1097457.1.0