What’s new from fund manufacturers

Advisor’s Edge regularly lists notable developments in Canada’s investment product landscape. Here is some recent product news:

• A year after launching its Amazon Canadian depositary receipt, CIBC announced Tuesday it has seven new CDRs trading on the NEO exchange: Cisco (CSCO), Coca-Cola (COLA), McDonald’s (MCDS), Nike (NKE), Starbucks (SBUX), UnitedHealth (UNH) and Verizon (VZ). CIBC now has 30 CDRs, which the bank has touted as a way of giving clients direct exposure to the world’s largest firms. Nine months ago, CIBC launched its Microsoft, Walt Disney, Visa, Facebook and PayPal CDRs.
• On July 22, Canada Life Investment Management Ltd. (CLIML) aligned the management fees for all its F Series mutual funds with its high-net-worth fee-based FW Series, reducing the fees by 10 to 40 basis points depending on the fund. The firm will redesignate its FW series as F series on Sept. 16 to create one fee-based series for all investors. With its F series now charging the same management fees as the FW series, CLIML will be eliminating any management fee reductions on F series between $100,000 and $499,999.
  • The firm has also changed the criteria to qualify for high-net-worth pricing. Now the minimum investment in any particular fund series is $500, down from $100,000. What has not changed is a high-net-worth client must have at least $500,000 in total holdings. It’s also introducing a new management fee reduction for investors with total holdings of more than $1 million.
• AGF Investments Inc. is slashing 30 basis points from the management fees of three funds: the AGF Floating Rate Income Fund, the AGF Global Real Assets Fund and the AGF Global Real Assets Class. Effective July 25, Credit Suisse Asset Management LLC and AGF are portfolio managers of the AGF Floating Rate Income Fund.
• Less than three weeks after being re-opened to new investors, the Phillips, Hager & North High Yield Bond Fund will be capped again as of July 29, parent firm RBC Global Asset Management Inc. announced on July 25. Existing unitholders can continue investing in the bond fund after it is capped. RBC GAM said the fund’s additional capacity “was fulfilled due to significant demand from investors.”

If you would like us to consider your launch, email Greg Meckbach at greg@newcom.ca.