Investment Objective
The iM DBi Hedge Strategy ETF (the “Fund”) seeks long-term capital appreciation.
Fees and Expenses of the Fund
This table describes the fees and expenses that you may pay if you buy, hold, and sell shares of the Fund (“Shares”). You may pay other fees, such as brokerage commissions and other fees to financial intermediaries, which are not reflected in the table and example below.
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Annual Fund Operating Expenses (expenses that you pay each year as a percentage of the value of your investment)
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Management Fees
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0.85%
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Distribution and/or Service (12b-1) Fees
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0.00%
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Other Expenses
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None
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Total Annual Fund Operating Expenses
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0.85%
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Example
This example is intended to help you compare the cost of investing in the Fund with the cost of investing in other funds. The example assumes that you invest $10,000 in the Fund for the time periods indicated and then sell all of your Shares at the end of those periods. The example also assumes that your investment has a 5% return each year and that the Fund’s operating expenses remain the same. Although your actual costs may be higher or lower, based on these assumptions your costs would be:
Portfolio Turnover
The Fund pays transaction costs, such as commissions, when it buys and sells securities (or “turns over” its portfolio). A higher portfolio turnover rate may indicate higher transaction costs and may result in higher taxes when Shares are held in a taxable account. These costs, which are not reflected in annual fund operating expenses or in the example, affect the Fund’s performance. Because amounts relating to derivatives and securities whose maturities or expiration dates at the time of acquisition were one year or less are excluded from the portfolio turnover calculation and these are the only types of instruments held by the Fund, the Fund does not report a portfolio turnover number.
Principal Investment Strategies
The Fund is a non-diversified actively-managed exchange-traded fund (“ETF”) that seeks to achieve its objective by: (i) investing its assets pursuant to an equity hedge strategy (described below); and (ii) allocating the remainder of its assets directly in a portfolio of investment grade debt securities to collateralize its derivatives investments, for liquidity purposes, or to enhance yield. The Fund seeks to model its investments after long/short equity hedge fund strategies and does not invest in hedge funds. Because the Fund is not a hedge fund, the Fund will be limited in its ability to fully replicate hedge fund strategies due to regulatory requirements, including limitations on leverage and liquidity of the Fund’s investments.
The Fund invests in long and short positions in exchange-traded futures contracts across the broad asset classes of equities, fixed income, and currencies. The long and short positions in the futures contracts are determined by the Fund’s sub-adviser, Dynamic Beta investments (“DBi” or the “Sub-Adviser”), using a proprietary, quantitative model – the Dynamic Beta Engine. The Dynamic Beta Engine is designed to identify the main drivers of performance of a diversified portfolio of the largest long/short equity hedge funds, which are hedge funds that employ fundamental analysis to buy or sell short individual equity securities to achieve their respective investment objectives (“Equity Hedge funds”).
Equity Hedge funds typically diversify their risks by limiting the hedge fund’s net exposure to certain industries, regions, or market capitalizations, which allows them to focus on company-specific characteristics. Equity Hedge funds often hedge against the returns of the overall market. The Fund will not necessarily use its long and short positions to reduce risk by taking offsetting positions. The Fund may take uncorrelated positions (e.g., invest in long and short futures contracts with values that do not historically exhibit a strong relationship to each other), which may increase the Fund’s overall market exposure and risk.
DBi has conducted extensive research into the drivers of performance of hedge funds and believes that individual security selection by the target Equity Hedge funds can deliver market outperformance over time through shifts in asset allocation among major equity markets. For example, if fundamentally-driven hedge fund managers collectively determine that stocks in emerging markets are more attractive than those in developed markets, the Dynamic Beta Engine can identify this and shift asset allocation exposures accordingly.
Based on this model, the Fund will invest in an optimized portfolio of long and short positions in U.S. exchange-traded futures contracts, as determined by the Sub-Adviser. This process is repeated monthly, with all positions rebalanced at that time. The Dynamic Beta Engine analyzes recent historical performance of a diversified pool of the largest Equity Hedge funds in order to estimate the current asset allocation of a selected pool of Equity Hedge funds. The Sub-Adviser relies exclusively on the model and does not have discretion to override the model-determined asset allocation or portfolio weights. Investing in a limited number of highly liquid futures contracts and monthly rebalancing is expected to keep transaction costs low relative to Equity Hedge funds. The model seeks to replicate Equity Hedge funds by analyzing historical returns of Equity Hedge funds provided by a third-party data provider and identifying futures contracts that most closely reflect the Equity Hedge funds’ estimated current exposures across the various asset classes.
Futures contracts are contractual agreements to buy or sell a particular equity index, currency, or financial instrument at a pre-determined price in the future. The Fund will invest in a limited number of highly-liquid futures contracts (including futures contracts on underlying instruments such as listed U.S. equity indices, baskets of currency, and U.S. treasury securities) that the Sub-Adviser believes exhibit the highest correlation to what the Sub-Adviser perceives to be the core positions of the target Equity Hedge funds, which are generally long and short positions of individual equity securities. The Fund will take long and short positions in U.S. exchange-traded derivative contracts viewed as highly liquid by the Sub-Adviser.
The Sub-Adviser will use quantitative methods to assess the level of risk for the Fund. The Fund may invest in derivative contracts that have an aggregate notional value that is greater than the Fund’s total assets. The notional value of a derivatives contract is the market value of the asset underlying the derivatives contract. Aggregate notional value is the sum of the notional values of the Fund’s derivatives contracts. The Fund’s aggregate notional value is intended to approximate the current risk profile of a diversified pool of the largest Equity Hedge funds. The Investment Company Act of 1940, as amended (the “1940 Act”), and the rules and interpretations thereunder, impose certain limitations on the Fund’s ability to use leverage, which is inherent in the futures positions held by the Fund.
Volatility is a statistical measure of the frequency and level of changes in the Fund’s returns over time without regard to the direction of those changes. Higher volatility generally indicates higher risk. Under normal market conditions, the Sub-Adviser, on average, will target an annualized volatility level for the Fund of 8-10%.
The Fund expects, under normal circumstances, to invest in investment grade debt securities to collateralize its derivatives investments, for liquidity purposes, or to enhance yield. The Fund may hold fixed income instruments of varying maturities, but that have an average duration of less than one year. In particular, the Fund may hold government money market instruments, such as U.S. Treasury securities and U.S. government agency discount notes and bonds with maturities of two years or less. In addition, the Fund may invest in bank obligations, which may include certificates of deposit, commercial paper, asset-backed commercial paper, unsecured bank promissory notes, bank loans, bankers’ acceptances, and time deposits, as well as other short-term instruments, such as loan participations. The Fund may also hold short-term U.S. corporate bonds rated AAA (or equivalent) by a nationally recognized statistical ratings organization.
Because the Fund is non-diversified, it may invest a greater percentage of its assets in a particular investment or issuer than a diversified fund.
Principal Risks of Investing in the Fund
The principal risks of investing in the Fund are summarized below. Some or all of these risks may adversely affect the Fund’s net asset value per share (“NAV”), trading price, yield, total return and/or ability to meet its objectives. As with any investment, there is a risk that you could lose all or a portion of your investment in the Fund. The following risks could affect the value of your investment in the Fund:
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Equity Hedge Strategy Risk. The Fund uses various investment strategies that seek to identify the main drivers of performance of a diversified portfolio of the largest long/short equity hedge funds. These investment strategies involve the use of complex derivatives techniques, and there is no guarantee that these strategies will succeed. The use of such strategies and techniques may subject the Fund to greater volatility and loss than investing in individual equity securities. There can be no assurance that utilizing a certain approach or model will achieve a particular level of return or reduce volatility and loss.
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Futures Contracts Risk. Futures contracts have a high degree of price variability and are subject to occasional rapid and substantial changes. There is an imperfect correlation between the change in market value of the futures contracts and the market value of the underlying instrument or reference assets with respect to such contracts. Futures contracts pose the risk of a possible lack of a liquid secondary market, resulting in the potential inability to close a futures contract when desired. Futures contracts are also subject to risks related to possible market disruptions or other extraordinary events, including but not limited to, governmental intervention, and potentially unlimited losses caused by unanticipated market movements. Futures contracts are subject to the possibility that the counterparties to the contracts will default in the performance of their obligations. If the Fund has insufficient cash, it may either have to sell securities from its portfolio to meet daily variation margin requirements with respect to its futures contracts, or close certain positions at a time when it may be disadvantageous to do so. The successful use of futures contracts draws upon the Sub-Adviser’s skill and experience with respect to such instruments and is subject to special risk considerations.
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The use of futures contracts, which are derivative instruments, will have the economic effect of financial leverage. Financial leverage magnifies exposure to the swings in prices of an asset class underlying an investment and results in increased volatility, which means the Fund will have the potential for greater losses than if the Fund did not employ leverage in its investment activity. Leveraging tends to magnify, sometimes significantly, the effect of any increase or decrease in the Fund’s exposure to an asset class and may cause the value of the Fund’s securities or related derivatives instruments to be volatile. There is no assurance that the Fund’s investment in a futures contract with leveraged exposure to certain investments and markets will enable the Fund to achieve its investment objective.
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Recent Market Events; Market Risk. U.S. and international markets have experienced significant periods of volatility in recent years and months due to a number of economic, political and global macro factors including the impact of the coronavirus as a global pandemic and related public health issues and growth concerns in the U.S. and overseas. The trading prices of equity securities and other instruments fluctuate in response to a variety of factors, including the activities and financial condition of individual companies, the market in which an issuer competes, general economic conditions, political events, terrorism, war, natural disasters, disease/virus epidemics and other events. The Fund’s NAV and market price may fluctuate significantly in response to these and other factors. As a result, an investor could lose money over short or long periods of time.
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Long Short Risk. The Fund seeks long exposure to certain factors and short exposure to certain other factors. The Fund may or may not take long or short positions in correlated asset classes. The Fund could lose money if either or both of the Fund’s long and short positions produce negative returns. The Dynamic Beta Engine may or may not identify long and short positions in correlated asset classes. There is no guarantee that the returns of the Fund’s long and short positions will produce positive returns.
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Short Sales Risk. The Fund may take a short position in a derivative instrument, such as a future, forward, swap or security. The Fund will lose value if the underlying security that is the subject of a short sale increases in value. A short position on a derivative instrument or security involves the risk of a theoretically unlimited increase in the value of the underlying instrument. Short sales also involve transaction and other costs that will reduce potential Fund gains and increase potential Fund losses.
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Derivatives Risk. Derivatives include instruments and contracts that are based on, and are valued in relation to, one or more underlying securities, financial benchmarks or indices, such as futures contracts, swap agreements and forward contracts. Derivatives typically have economic leverage inherent in their terms. The primary type of derivatives in which the Fund invests is futures contracts. Futures contracts can be highly volatile, illiquid and difficult to value, and changes in the value of such instruments held directly or indirectly by the Fund may not correlate with the underlying instrument or reference assets, or the Fund’s other investments. Although the value of futures contracts depends largely upon price movements in the underlying instrument or reference asset, there are additional risks associated with futures contracts that are possibly greater than the risks associated with investing directly in the underlying instruments or reference assets, including illiquidity risk, leveraging risk and counterparty credit risk. A small position in futures contracts could have a potentially large impact on the Fund’s performance. Trading restrictions or limitations may be imposed by an exchange, and government regulations may restrict trading in futures contracts.
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Equity Risk. Through the Fund’s use of derivatives, the Fund may have exposure to equity securities and/or broad-based equity indices. Equity securities tend to be more volatile than other investment choices, such as debt and money market instruments. The value of your investment may decrease in response to overall stock market movements or the value of individual securities.
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Credit Risk. Credit risk refers to the possibility that the issuer of the security or a counterparty in respect of a derivative instrument will not be able to satisfy its payment obligations to the Fund when due. Changes in an issuer’s credit rating or the market’s perception of an issuer’s creditworthiness may also affect the value of the Fund’s investment in that issuer. Securities rated in the four highest categories by the rating agencies are considered investment grade but they may also have some speculative characteristics. Investment grade ratings do not guarantee that bonds will not lose value or default. In addition, the credit quality of securities may be lowered if an issuer’s financial condition changes.
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Currency Risk. The Fund’s exposure to foreign currencies subjects the Fund to the risk that those currencies will decline in value relative to the U.S. Dollar, or, in the case of short positions, that the U.S. Dollar will decline in value relative to the currency that the Fund is short. Currency rates in foreign countries may fluctuate significantly over short periods of time for any number of reasons, including changes in interest rates and the imposition of currency controls or other political developments in the U.S. or abroad.
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ETF Risks. The Fund is an ETF, and, as a result of an ETF’s structure, it is exposed to the following risks:
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Authorized Participants, Market Makers, and Liquidity Providers Limitation Risk. The Fund has a limited number of financial institutions that may act as Authorized Participants (“APs”). In addition, there may be a limited number of market makers and/or liquidity providers in the marketplace. To the extent either of the following events occur, Shares may trade at a material discount to NAV and possibly face delisting: (i) APs exit the business or otherwise become unable to process creation and/or redemption orders and no other APs step forward to perform these services, or (ii) market makers and/or liquidity providers exit the business or significantly reduce their business activities and no other entities step forward to perform their functions.
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Cash Redemption Risk. The Fund’s investment strategy may require it to redeem Shares for cash or to otherwise include cash as part of its redemption proceeds. The Fund may be required to sell or unwind portfolio investments to obtain the cash needed to distribute redemption proceeds. This may cause the Fund to recognize a capital gain that it might not have recognized if it had made a redemption in-kind. As a result, the Fund may pay out higher annual capital gain distributions than if the in-kind redemption process was used.
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Costs of Buying or Selling Shares. Due to the costs of buying or selling Shares, including brokerage commissions imposed by brokers and bid/ask spreads, frequent trading of Shares may significantly reduce investment results and an investment in Shares may not be advisable for investors who anticipate regularly making small investments.
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Shares May Trade at Prices Other Than NAV. As with all ETFs, Shares may be bought and sold in the secondary market at market prices. Although it is expected that the market price of Shares will approximate the Fund’s NAV, there may be times when the market price of Shares is more than the NAV intra-day (premium) or less than the NAV intra-day (discount) due to supply and demand of Shares or during periods of market volatility. This risk is heightened in times of market volatility, periods of steep market declines, and periods when there is limited trading activity for Shares in the secondary market, in which case such premiums or discounts may be significant.
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Trading. Although Shares are listed for trading on a national securities exchange, and may be traded on other U.S. exchanges, there can be no assurance that Shares will trade with any volume, or at all, on any stock exchange. In stressed market conditions, the liquidity of Shares may begin to mirror the liquidity of the Fund’s underlying portfolio holdings, which can be significantly less liquid than Shares.
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Debt Securities and Fixed-Income Risk. Fixed income securities, such as U.S. Treasuries, or derivatives based on fixed income securities, are subject to credit risk and interest rate risk. Credit risk, as described more fully above, refers to the possibility that the issuer of a debt security will be unable to make interest payments or repay principal when it becomes due. Interest rate risk refers to fluctuations in the value of a debt security resulting from changes in the general level of interest rates. Prices of fixed income securities tend to move inversely with changes in interest rates. Typically, a rise in rates will adversely affect fixed income security prices and, accordingly, the Fund’s returns and share price. In addition, the Fund may be subject to “call” risk, which is the risk that during a period of falling interest rates the issuer may redeem a security by repaying it early (which may reduce the Fund’s income if the proceeds are reinvested at lower interest rates), and “extension” risk, which occurs during a rising interest rate environment because certain obligations will be paid off by an issuer more slowly than anticipated (causing the value of those securities held by the Fund to fall).
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Interest Rate Risk. Interest rate risk is the risk that prices of fixed income securities generally increase when interest rates decline and decrease when interest rates increase. The Fund may lose money if short term or long-term interest rates rise sharply or otherwise change in a manner not anticipated by the Sub-Adviser. The Fund may be subject to heightened interest rate risk due to rising rates as the current period of historically low interest rates may be ending. Interest rate risk is generally greater for fixed-income securities with longer maturities or durations, but increasing interest rates may have an adverse effect on the value of the Fund’s investment portfolio as a whole, as investors and markets adjust expected returns relative to such increasing rates. The negative impact on fixed income securities from the resulting rate increases for that and other reasons could be swift and significant.
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Management Risk. The Fund is actively-managed and may not meet its investment objective based on the portfolio managers’ success or failure to implement investment strategies for the Fund.
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General Market Risk. The Fund’s NAV and investment return will fluctuate based upon changes in the value of its portfolio securities. You could lose money on your investment in the Fund, or the Fund could underperform other investments.
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Non-Diversified Fund Risk. Because the Fund is “non-diversified,” it may invest a greater percentage of its assets in the securities of a single issuer. As a result, a decline in the value of an investment in a single issuer could cause the Fund’s overall value to decline to a greater degree than if the Fund held a more diversified portfolio.
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Government Securities and Agency Risk. Direct obligations of the U.S. Government such as Treasury bills, notes and bonds are supported by its full faith and credit. Indirect obligations issued by Federal agencies and government-sponsored entities generally are not backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. Treasury. Accordingly, while U.S. Government agencies and instrumentalities may be chartered or sponsored by Acts of Congress, their securities are neither issued nor guaranteed by the U.S. Treasury. Some of these indirect obligations may be supported by the right of the issuer to borrow from the Treasury; others are supported by the discretionary authority of the U.S. Government to purchase the agency’s obligations; still others are supported only by the credit of the instrumentality.
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Liquidity Risk. The Fund is subject to liquidity risk primarily due to its investments in derivatives. Investments in derivative instruments involve the risk that the Fund may be unable to sell the derivative instrument or sell it at a reasonable price.
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New Fund Risk. As a new fund, there can be no assurance that the Fund will grow or maintain an economically viable size.
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Portfolio Turnover Risk. The Fund may frequently buy and sell portfolio securities and other assets to rebalance the Fund’s exposure to various market sectors. Higher portfolio turnover may result in the Fund paying higher levels of transaction costs and generating greater tax liabilities for shareholders. Portfolio turnover risk may cause the Fund’s performance to be less than you expect. While the turnover of certain of the Fund’s derivatives investments is not deemed “portfolio turnover” for accounting purposes, the economic impact to the Fund is similar to what could occur if the Fund experienced high portfolio turnover.
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Regulatory Risk. Governments, agencies or other regulatory bodies may adopt or change laws or regulations that could adversely affect the issuer, or market value, of an instrument held by the Fund or that could adversely impact the Fund’s performance.
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Performance
The Fund is new and therefore does not have a performance history for a full calendar year. In the future, performance information for the Fund will be presented in this section. Updated performance information is also available on the Fund’s website at www.imglobalpartner.com.
Management
Investment Adviser
iM Global Partner US LLC (the “Adviser”) serves as investment adviser to the Fund.
Investment Sub-Adviser
Dynamic Beta investments, LLC (the “Sub-Adviser”) serves as investment sub-adviser to the Fund.
Portfolio Managers
Andrew Beer, Managing Member at the Sub-Adviser, and Mathias Mamou-Mani, Managing Member at the Sub-Adviser, are jointly and primarily responsible for the day-to-day management of the Fund. Messrs. Beer and Mamou-Mani have been portfolio managers of the Fund since its inception in December 2019.
Purchase and Sale of Shares
Shares are listed and trade on NYSE Arca (the “Exchange”). Individual Shares may only be bought and sold on the Exchange through a broker or dealer at market prices, rather than at NAV. Because Shares trade at market prices rather than at NAV, Shares may trade at a price greater than at NAV (premium) or less than at NAV (discount). Investors may also incur costs attributable to the difference between the highest price a buyer is willing to pay to purchase Shares (bid) and the lowest price a seller is willing to accept for Shares (ask) when buying or selling Shares in the secondary market.
The Fund issues and redeems Shares at NAV only in large blocks known as “Creation Units,” which only APs (typically, broker-dealers) may purchase or redeem. Creation Units generally consist of 25,000 Shares, though this may change from time to time. The Fund generally issues and redeems Creation Units in exchange for a designated amount of U.S. cash and/or a portfolio of securities closely approximating the holdings of the Fund (the “Deposit Securities”).
Information on the Fund’s NAV, market price, and premiums and discounts to NAV is available on the Fund’s website www.imglobalpartner.com.
Tax Information
Fund distributions are generally taxable as ordinary income, qualified dividend income, or capital gains (or a combination), unless your investment is in an individual retirement account (“IRA”) or other tax-advantaged account. Distributions on investments made through tax-deferred arrangements may be taxed later upon withdrawal of assets from those accounts.
Financial Intermediary Compensation
If you purchase Shares through a broker-dealer or other financial intermediary (such as a bank) (an “Intermediary”), the Adviser or its affiliates may pay Intermediaries for certain activities related to the Fund, including participation in activities that are designed to make Intermediaries more knowledgeable about exchange traded products, including the Fund, or for other activities, such as marketing, educational training or other initiatives related to the sale or promotion of Shares. These payments may create a conflict of interest by influencing the Intermediary and your salesperson to recommend the Fund over another investment. Any such arrangements do not result in increased Fund expenses. Ask your salesperson or visit the Intermediary’s website for more information.
