American Century Investments has launched the American Century Quality Diversified International ETF (QINT), American Century STOXX US Quality Growth ETF (QGRO) and American Century Diversified Municipal Bond ETF (TAXF) on the NYSE ARCA.
“We are building a line-up of ETFs that apply our unique insights to solve common investment problems and help investors achieve their goals,” says Edward Rosenberg, senior vice president and head of ETFs for American Century. “We are excited to launch these additional funds.”
American Century Quality Diversified International ETF and American Century STOXX US Quality Growth ETF are designed to utilise American Century’s Intelligent Beta methodology, which systematises many of the same attributes that fundamental research and security selection seek to identify, in a rules-based, indexed approach.
American Century Quality Diversified International ETF is a foreign large blend fund that seeks to enhance core international exposure. Its rules-based approach analyses each stock’s quality, growth and value characteristics to select individual securities. It also dynamically adjusts exposures in an effort to take advantage of prevailing market conditions.
American Century STOXX US Quality Growth ETF is a large-cap growth fund that seeks to enhance the core growth component of investor portfolios. The fund features a rules-based approach to identify stocks that feature a combination of quality and growth. The methodology distinguishes between stable growth and pure growth companies, dynamically allocating to each category and adjusting sector exposures, depending on the market environment.
Both funds will be managed by Senior Vice President and Portfolio Manager Peruvemba Satish and ETF Portfolio Manager Rene Casis. Satish leads American Century’s global analytics team and joined the firm in 2014. Casis joined American Century in early 2018 after serving in ETF portfolio management roles with BlackRock, Barclays Global Investors (BGI) and 55 Institutional.
The third fund, American Century Diversified Municipal Bond ETF, is an actively managed municipal bond fund that combines investments in thoroughly researched high yield and investment grade municipal bonds. Designed for investors seeking current income, the fund dynamically adjusts investment grade and high yield exposures based on prevailing market conditions. Senior Vice President and Portfolio Manager Steven Permut and Vice President and Portfolio Managers Joe Gotelli and Alan Kruss are managing the fund. The firm’s municipal team averages 24 years of industry experience coupled with an average tenure of 21 years with the firm.
“We now have five ETF funds available for clients and investors,” Rosenberg says. “All of our ETFs feature institutional-quality management that draws on the firm’s fundamental and quantitative expertise.”
Today’s launch of three more ETF funds caps a busy year for American Century, the firm writes.
Since announcing its ETF initiative in the spring of 2017, the firm writes that it has made steady progress hiring key personnel, establishing relationships with ETF liquidity providers and laying the groundwork for a sustained presence in the ETF marketplace.
Rosenberg joined the firm from Northern Trust’s FlexShares in June 2017, followed by the November hiring of Matt Lewis as vice president and head of ETF implementation & capital markets.
American Century also announced that it entered into an agreement with Precidian Investments, LLC to license the firm’s ActiveSharesSM methodology in support of the potential launch of actively managed, non-transparent ETFs, subject to regulatory approval. In early 2018, the firm hired Rene Casis for the value ETF portfolio manager position and Sean Walker as an ETF specialist. Then the firm announced the launch of its first two ETFs in mid-January. Lastly, the firm named Margaret Dorn as ETF external specialist and Matthew Abatecola and Ross Kamovitch as ETF internal specialists in March.
