Despite published reports that American Funds is getting on the ETF bandwagon, the company has no immediate plans to launch an ETF, spokesman Tom Joyce told WealthManagement.com. On Tuesday, the Securities and Exchange Commission gave the company preliminary approval for its transparent active ETFs application, but there are no products in the works.
“While we continue to have an interest in the concept of active ETFs, we don’t have any immediate plans to offer ETFs of any kind at this time,” Joyce said. “We filed several different applications because we want to be engaged in the dialogue with the regulators and with their industry participants. And we had come to the conclusion that in order to continue that dialogue and understand the developments that were going on in this space, we needed to file for exemptive relief.”
Filing for exemptive relief allows the company to stay up-to-speed with what ETF product designs look like and what the potential demand may be in the marketplace.
While American Funds had experienced negative mutual fund flows in the years after the financial crisis of 2008, the firm had inflows of $345 million in 2014, according to Morningstar.
“We continue to see great momentum in our active management approach,” Joyce said.
