The Fund is an actively-managed exchange-traded fund (“ETF”) that blends active and passive investment strategies to optimize costs, tracking and potential return over the Fund’s benchmark index, the Bloomberg Municipal Bond: Muni Inter-Short (1-10) Index (the “Underlying Index”). Under normal market conditions, the Fund invests at least 80% of its net assets (plus any borrowings for investment purposes) in U.S. municipal bond securities that are exempt from U.S. federal income tax and are rated investment grade or better. The Fund may also invest up to 20% of its net assets in high-yield municipal bonds, also known as “junk bonds.” The ratio of the Fund’s assets that are allocated to active versus passive investment strategies is determined by Envestnet Asset Management, Inc., the Fund’s investment adviser, (the “Adviser”), and is based on a variety of factors, including the Adviser’s proprietary research that looks at the likelihood of active managers outperforming or underperforming within the asset classes in which the Fund invests, the Adviser’s
research and due diligence on available investment sub-advisers (each, a “Sub-Adviser”) within the different asset classes in which the Fund invests and the Adviser’s assessment of how different Sub-Advisers will contribute to overall Fund performance. The Adviser also considers academic research on factor investing, which is an investment approach that involves selecting securities based on attributes associated with higher returns, and the long-term performance of factor investing with established style factors across the asset classes in which the Fund invests. Under normal market conditions, the Adviser allocates at least 50% of the Fund’s assets to the passive allocation. The Adviser’s allocation to passive investments takes advantage of low costs and index tracking while the active allocation can provide opportunities to add value through risk mitigation and security selection. In the event of a market disruption, like a central bank intervention, or a disruption in credit or liquidity, the Adviser may increase the Fund’s active allocation to take advantage of any mispricings that may arise when the Adviser or a Sub-Adviser determines that a security’s price does not reflect the fundamental value of the security. The portion of the Fund’s investment portfolio that is actively managed by the Sub-Adviser and Adviser ranges from 5% to 50% of the Fund’s net assets and is expected to shift over time as economic conditions change and the available information about the asset classes in which the Fund invests evolves. The remaining portion of the Fund’s portfolio is allocated to the passive investment strategy. The Adviser generally rebalances the Fund’s portfolio between the active and passive investment strategies on an annual basis but may rebalance the portfolio more frequently if market conditions warrant or the allocation between active and passive drifts significantly from the target allocation.
The Fund’s investments in municipal bonds will generally be exempt from U.S. federal income tax but may be subject to the federal alternative minimum tax (“AMT”) for non-corporate shareholders. The Adviser and the Sub-Adviser seek to limit volatility in the Fund’s portfolio by investing in municipal bonds with different maturity dates and credit ratings that the Adviser and the Sub-Adviser believes provide stable and consistent returns to the Fund. The Fund’s investments in municipal bonds may include construction loan notes, general obligation bonds, industrial development bonds, revenue anticipation notes, revenue bonds, tax anticipation notes and tax-exempt commercial notes. The Fund may invest in tax-exempt securities with a range of maturities, from short-term obligations carrying maturities of less than one year to long-term obligations with maturities more than 20 years but expects the securities held by the Fund to have a dollar-weighted average maturity of more than three years but less than ten. The municipal bonds in which the Fund invests must be rated CCC+ or better at the time of purchase by any nationally recognized statistical rating organization (“NRSRO”). In the event a security is split rated by two or more NRSROs, the Adviser will use the lower rating to determine credit quality. The allocation of the Fund’s portfolio will concentrate its investments (i.e., hold 25% or more of its total assets) in a particular industry or group of industries to approximately the same extent that the Underlying Index is concentrated. The Underlying Index is a market value-weighted index which covers the short and intermediate components of the Bloomberg Municipal Bond Index, an unmanaged, market value-weighted index which covers the U.S. investment-grade tax-exempt bond market. The sponsor of the Underlying Index determines the composition of the Underlying Index and relative weightings of the securities in the Underlying Index and publishes information regarding the market value of the Underlying Index. Neither the Fund nor the Adviser is affiliated with the sponsor of the Underlying Index. The Underlying Index tracks the performance of tax-exempt municipal general obligation, revenue, and pre-refunded bonds with a minimum $7 million par amount outstanding, issued as part of a transaction of at least $75 million, and the effective maturity of the bonds must be greater than or equal to 1 year but less than 10 years. The Underlying Index includes reinvestment of income and is rebalanced monthly.
The Adviser is responsible for developing, constructing and monitoring the asset allocation and portfolio strategy for the Fund and generally quantitatively manages the passive allocation of the Fund’s investment portfolio. Quantitative investing, also known as systematic investing, is an investment approach that uses mathematical modeling, computer systems and data analysis to evaluate a specific universe of potential investments. Quantitative investing uses data to build portfolios that either attempt to track an index, provide exposure to specific investment style factors, or structure the portfolio according to desired attributes. The
Adviser’s quantitative strategy with respect to the Fund seeks to construct the passive allocation of the portfolio to provide investment results that, before expenses, correspond to the performance of the Underlying Index. The Adviser manages the passive allocation utilizing a representative sampling strategy, meaning that the Fund may not purchase all of the securities represented in the Underlying Index, but it attempts to construct the passive allocation of the Fund to hold a portfolio of securities with generally the same risk, return and credit quality characteristics of the Underlying Index. As part of the passive allocation, the Fund may invest in passively-managed ETFs in trying to construct the passive allocation to track the Underlying Index. The passive allocation may be represented by securities maturing at regular intervals, meaning that the fixed-income securities in the Fund’s passive allocation will have maturity dates that are evenly spaced across several years so that the proceeds may be reinvested at regular intervals as the securities mature.
The Adviser also believes that the Fund’s reward and risk characteristics can be enhanced by employing one or more Sub-Advisers, with complementary styles and approaches, who actively manage distinct segments of a market, asset class or investment style for the Fund. The Fund currently employs one Sub-Adviser to manage the Fund’s qualitative active allocation, GW&K Investment Management, LLC (“GW&K”). GW&K manages the Fund’s qualitative active allocation by emphasizing bottom-up research to target investment grade short to intermediate maturity municipal bonds. GW&K’s proprietary process focuses on a selective universe of municipal bonds to seek best relative value while managing risk. GW&K generally relies on detailed proprietary research and focus on the sectors and securities they believe are undervalued relative to the market. GW&K actively trades the portion of the Fund’s investment portfolio they manage, and the Fund may experience a high portfolio turnover rate. In selecting securities for investment, GW&K typically:
•Uses in-depth fundamental research to identify sectors and securities for potential investment and to analyze risk;
•Analyzes the credit quality of issuers, an issuer’s potential for success, the credit, currency, and economic risks of potential investments and their issuers, security-specific features, current and potential future valuation of potential investments, and trading opportunities to select investments;
•Looks to capitalize on rapidly shifting market risks and dynamics caused by economic and technical factors; and
•Considers the liquidity of securities and the portfolio overall as an important factor in portfolio construction.
