Nasdaq Expands Team for ETF Share Class Surge
(Bloomberg) — Nasdaq Inc. is hiring to get ahead of a potential wave of listings after US regulators signaled they’ll allow asset managers to offer ETFs as share classes of existing mutual funds.
Nasdaq is one of the many players in the $13 trillion US ETF market preparing for what industry watchers say is a watershed moment in asset management. The Securities and Exchange Commission indicated in late September that it would allow Dimensional Fund Advisors to create ETF share classes of a mutual fund, with roughly 80 more competitors waiting in the wings for approval as well. The move is forecast to lead to potentially hundreds of new ETF listings.
In anticipation, Nasdaq is looking to add not only in the exchange-traded product group in the coming weeks, but also in the legal and compliance side, according to Giang Bui, head of US equities and exchange-traded products. The exchange hired Kristian D’Agostino as senior director of ETFs last week.
“We are staffing up our team to really ensure that depth,” Bui said on Bloomberg Television’s ETF IQ on Monday. “We want to make sure that we’re never the slow point in the listing process.”
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In the weeks since the SEC gave its blessing, questions have swirled about the technical challenges of implementing the new structure. A May report from JPMorgan Chase & Co. argued that launching a successful ETF strategy “is not just as simple as adding a share class to an existing mutual fund and expecting it to gain assets,” while onlookers have warned that an en-masse deluge of ETF share class launches could strain the market-making ecosystem.
“Whenever we come to market, we’re going to be able to support the issuers’ timeline for launch,” Bui said.
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