Many large mutual fund providers have received exemptive relief from the Securities and Exchange Commission to launch exchange traded funds, but the firms haven’t taken the next step to market.
For example, Fidelity, T. Rowe Price, Franklin Templeton, John Hancock, Legg Mason and Federated are among more than 20 fund managers that have the necessary SEC approval, but they have not launched an ETF yet, reports Jackie Noblett for Ignites. [Calamos Wants in on Active ETF Space]
“You can file for exemptive relief without any commitments,” Alec Papazian, associate director at Cerulli Associates, said in the article. “Maybe they’re thinking that they’ll do that and come up with a more overarching strategy later.”
Mutual fund providers may just want the exemptive relief in case they want step into the ETF industry, or they might push off the idea for a rainy day. [Franklin Templeton Readying First Foray into ETFs]
“Maybe they then decided that they don’t want to do anything with [the exemptive relief], or they put it on the back burner,” Papazian added.