AGFiQ's QuantShares ETFs expansion and
enhancements well underway
Listing: NYSE (New York Stock Exchange)
Symbols: MOM, CHEP, SIZ, BTAL, DIVA
NEW YORK, April 24, 2017 /PRNewswire/ - AGF Management
Limited (AGF) is pleased to announce the official launch of AGFiQ
Asset Management (AGFiQ) in the U.S. market – the quantitative
investment platform for AGF powered by an intellectually diverse,
multi-disciplined team that combines the complementary strengths of
investment professionals across AGF and its affiliates from
Highstreet Asset Management Inc. (Highstreet) and FFCM, LLC (FFCM)
to deliver innovative product ideas around specific client needs
and outcomes.
Back in November 2015, AGF
announced that it acquired the majority stake in FFCM, a
Boston-based ETF advisor and asset
management firm whose expertise is delivered through a family of
alternative and smart-beta ETFs and a number of ETF managed
strategies. Since that time much has happened to onboard FFCM into
the AGF family.
- To date AGF has brought FFCM's entire operations inside our
network and office delivering oversight for cybersecurity; a
disaster recovery process; and a technology infrastructure to drive
scale across their platform.
- FFCM's compliance processes have been fully integrated into
AGF's.
- Given these operational enhancements and increased scalability,
size of client opportunities can easily be managed for.
"This strategic investment strengthened our core competency in
developing and managing our quantitative products," said
Blake C. Goldring, Chairman and
Chief Executive Officer, AGF Management Limited. "The ability for
us to bring together the investment management bench at both FFCM
and Highstreet has reinforced AGF's commitment to offering
innovative ideas that focus on risk mitigation, while offering
active market participation."
"The addition of the team at FFCM has deepened AGF's platform
from which to develop investment products, including ETFs, designed
in an effort to manage volatility and deliver more consistent,
repeatable results," added Goldring.
Led by Chief Executive Officer Bill
Carey, FFCM creates, structures and manages ETFs. As ETF
strategists, the investment team has a thorough understanding of
the underlying instruments, which enables better asset allocation
decisions and risk controls.
"Partnering with AGF has provided greater opportunity to grow
our research, marketing and product development capabilities, while
also bringing us operational scale and efficiencies," said Carey.
"Early this year we were able to see this partnership flourish as
we came together to form AGFiQ with the launch of seven QuantShares
ETFs to the Canadian marketplace."
QuantShares U.S. ETFs
AGFiQ's QuantShares suite of U.S.-listed factor-based market
neutral and sector neutral ETFs make use of "long-short" strategies
in efforts of potentially generating spread returns that may help
insulate investors from the ups and downs of the market. The firm
offers four factor-based market neutral funds which provide
exposure to momentum (MOM), value (CHEP), size (SIZ), and anti-beta
(BTAL), and rounds out its line-up with an income-focused ETF, its
Hedged Dividend Income Fund (DIVA).
Factor-based investing can offer a rigorous, empirically
supported method for disciplined asset allocation in a systematic,
risk-controlled manner.
"Our suite of ETFs were developed with the intention of
isolating factor performance as much as possible in the
marketplace. Those strategies can be quite useful for investors
looking for uncorrelated income streams, attempting to smooth out
returns, or 'tilting' a given portfolio towards a desired factor,"
added Carey.
On October 5, 2016, FFCM reduced
certain expense ratios across its entire lineup of funds. Certain
expenses across the line-up of QuantShares ETFs powered by AGFiQ
have been limited to 75 basis points from 99 basis points for DIVA
and 149 basis point for all other funds.
"This across-the-board expense ratio reduction speaks to our
broader commitment to ensuring that investors in our products can
access our strategies cost effectively as well as to the
operational efficiencies achieved with our integration into AGF,"
said Carey.
Today, AGFiQ and its partners will be opening the NYSE exchange
to celebrate the evolution of the AGF partnership and in
recognition of the enhancements and history of the QuantShares ETF
suite of products – all of which are celebrating track records of
two or more years. In addition, a new website has been launched to
deliver greater support for our clients and investors. For more
information, visit AGFiQ.com.
About AGF
Founded in 1957, AGF Management Limited (AGF) is a diversified
global asset management firm with retail, institutional,
alternative and high-net-worth businesses. As an independent firm,
we strive to help investors succeed by delivering excellence in
investment management and providing an exceptional client
experience. Our suite of diverse investment solutions extends
globally to a wide range of clients, from financial advisors and
individual investors to institutional investors including pension
plans, corporate plans, sovereign wealth funds and endowments and
foundations.
AGF has investment operations and client servicing teams on the
ground in North America,
Europe and Asia. With C$35.5 billion (as at March 31, 2017) in total assets under management,
AGF serves more than one million investors. AGF trades on the
Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol AGF.B.
ABOUT AGFiQ
AGF's quantitative products, including QuantShares ETFs powered
by AGFiQ Asset Management (AGFiQ), are managed through Highstreet
Asset Management Inc. (Highstreet), located in London, Ontario, and/or FFCM, LLC (FFCM),
located in Boston, and are
supported by a team of 21 investment professionals, from across AGF
and its affiliates, managing AUM of approximately C$4.8 billion. AGFiQ's portfolio and
investment management team has extensive experience in quantitative
investing and research with a core investment discipline focused on
factor-based investing. AGFiQ is grounded in the belief that
investment outcomes can be improved by assessing and targeting the
factors that drive market returns.
Before investing you should carefully consider each Fund's
investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses. This and other
information is in Fund's prospectus which can be found at
www.agfiq.com. Please read the prospectus carefully before you
invest.
FFCM has agreed (i) contractually to waive its management fees
and reimburse expenses until November 13,
2017 to the extent necessary to prevent the Fund's net
operating expenses (excluding interest, taxes, brokerage
commissions and other expenses that are capitalized in accordance
with generally accepted accounting principles, dividend, interest
and brokerage expenses for short positions, acquired fund fees and
expenses, and extraordinary expenses, if any) from exceeding 0.75%.
Basis points equals one hundredth of one percent.
Risks: There is no guarantee that the Funds will achieve their
objective. An investment in the Funds is subject to risk including
the possible loss of principal amount invested. The risks
associated with each Fund are detailed in the prospectus and
include, but not limited to, tracking error risk, mid-cap risk,
industry concentration risk, market neutral style risk, short sale
risk and specific risks related to exchange traded funds. There is
a risk that during a "bull" market, when most equity securities and
long only ETFs are increasing in value, the Funds' short positions
will likely cause the Fund to underperform the overall U.S. equity
market and such ETFs. The Fund may not be suitable for all
investors.
Shares are not individually redeemable and can be redeemed only
in Creation Units. The market price of shares can be at, below or
above the NAV. Brokerage commissions will reduce returns. Market
Price returns are based upon the midpoint of the bid/ask spread at
approximately 4:00 PM Eastern time
(when NAV is normally determined), and do not represent the returns
you would receive if you traded shares at other times. Fund returns
assume that dividends and capital gains distributions have been
reinvested in the Fund at NAV. Some performance results reflect
expense subsidies and waivers in effect during certain periods
shown. Absent these waivers, results would have been less
favorable.
Distributor: Foreside Fund Services, LLC
The AGF logo, "AGFiQ" and "powered by AGFiQ" are trademarks
of AGF Management Limited and are used under licence. The
Quantshares logo and "Quantshares" are trademarks of FFCM, LLC and
are used under licence.
SOURCE AGF