BondBloxx Investment Management, a provider of fixed income ETFs, is seeking exemptive relief from the Securities and Exchange Commission that would allow BondBloxx to offer one or more mutual fund share classes of its “US Treasury Series” ETFs, a filing shows.
The Dec. 4 filing with the SEC listed the BondBloxx ETF Trust and BondBloxx Investment Management, the adviser, as applicants.
“Applicants request that the order apply to any future series of the trust that are advised by the adviser, that track the performance of an index and that provide exposure to U.S. Treasury securities similar to the investment mandates of the funds in the US Treasury Series,” the filing said.
The filing listed eight ETFs that it described as the “US Treasury Series.”
With its application, BondBloxx joins a long list of firms seeking exemptive relief relating to a multi-class structure. Like others before it, BondBloxx’s application cited an exemptive order the SEC granted to Vanguard Group in 2000. The order permitted Vanguard “to offer certain index-based open-end management investment companies with mutual fund classes and exchange-traded classes,” the BondBloxx filing said.
Relying on that exemptive order and subsequent ones, “Vanguard has become a major sponsor of index-based ETFs,” the filing said. A patent held by Vanguard expired in May 2023.
Due to quiet period restrictions, “BondBloxx won’t be able to comment on the filing at this time,” a BondBloxx spokeswoman said in a Dec. 6 email.
As of Dec. 3, BondBloxx had $3.4 billion in total assets under management across 25 ETFs, the spokeswoman said in a previous email.
