Northern Trust is taking steps to bring its exchange-traded fund family back from the dead. The advisor liquidated the NT ETF Trust funds more than a year ago on February 20, 2009. Yet, on Friday it filed with the SEC [see filing] to revive the funds. The twist is that the application calls for the new funds to invest primarily in fixed income investments, whereas the prior funds were invested in equities.

The earlier family of ETFs -- dubbed NETS as a reference to the Northern Exchange Traded Shares -- launched in 2008 (see MFWire, April 9, 2008) but only gathered $33 million after less than a year on the market. It liquidated the 17 funds the following January (see MFWire, January 27, 2009).

One issue with NETS may have been their narrow focus. Many of the products were single-country ETFs that were in heavy competition from similar products offered by iShares.  

Edited by: Sean Hanna, Editor in Chief


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