The Janus Henderson AAA CLO ETF topped $4 billion in assets under management before its third anniversary, making it the largest fixed income ETF launch by AUM of the last three years, Janus Henderson Group said in an Oct. 18 news release, citing Bloomberg data.
The Bloomberg data was as of Oct. 16 and included only new fund launches, not conversions of existing funds, the release said. The Janus Henderson AAA CLO ETF has an Oct. 16, 2020, inception date, according to Janus Henderson's website.
Janus Henderson now ranks as the fifth-largest provider of active fixed income ETFs in the U.S. by AUM, the release said, also citing Bloomberg data as of Oct. 16.
The Janus Henderson AAA CLO ETF, known by the ticker symbol JAAA, invests in high-quality collateralized loan obligations, the release said. CLOs are debt securities of various risk levels backed by an underlying portfolio consisting primarily of below investment grade corporate loans.
As of Oct. 17, the fund had net assets totaling $4.21 billion, Janus Henderson's website showed. The ETF has a net annual expense ratio of 0.22% and has returned 6.23% this year through Oct. 17, according to the website.
"There's strong demand for CLOs as an alternative to traditional bonds given the strong risk reward attributes," said Todd Rosenbluth, head of research at VettaFi, a data and analytics provider. "JAAA has not only garnered interest but rewarded shareholders with strong performance this year."
Portfolio managers on the fund are John Kerschner, Nick Childs and Jessica Shill.
"We have had an overwhelming response to JAAA from clients given the benefits of investing in CLOs including attractive yield and income, diversification and exposure to high-quality floating rate credit," Kerschner, who is also head of U.S. securitized products at Janus Henderson, said in the release.
That, together with "the market environment of high and rising rates, increasing economic uncertainty, and the transparency, liquidity and low fees that the ETF structure provides has further propelled investor interest," he said.
Headquartered in London, Janus Henderson had about $322 billion in assets under management as of June 30, the release said.
