The folks at a 179-year-old insurer's $727-billion-AUM (as of June 30), multi-boutique asset manager are preparing to shut down a $342.5-million-AUM (as of yesterday) trio of index funds.

Naïm Abou-Jaoudé New York Life Investment Management LLC CEO

Last Friday (September 27), the New York Life Investments [profile] team revealed that the board of New York Life Investments ETF Trust has approved plans to liquidate three of their passively managed ETFs: the NYLI 500 International ETF (IQIN), the NYLI CBRE NextGen Real Estate ETF (ROOF), and the NYLI Engender Equality ETF (EQUL). The funds (all former IndexIQ ETFs) are expected to stop trading on November 20, and November 27 is their planned liquidation date.

The New York Life Investments team explains the planned dissolutions as being "part of the company's regular review of its product lineup." News of the liquidation plan comes a month after the fund firm's team rebranded all of their mutual funds and ETFs (including EQUL, IQIN, and ROOF) under the new NYLI Funds brand.

New York Life Investment Management LLC (NYLIM) serves as investment advisor to ROOF, IQIN, and EQUL. NYLIM also serves as index provider to IQIN and ROOF, while Solactive A.G. serves as EQUL's index provider and CBRE Investment Management Listed Real Assets LLC serves as ROOF's index construction consultant. All three liquidating ETFs' expense ratios bake in a 1-basis-point fee waiver.

IQIN launched on December 13, 2018 as the IQ 500 International ETF. The fund is designed to track the NYLI 500 International Index and comes with a 25bps expense ratio. As of yesterday (October 3, 2024), IQIN had $193.1 million in AUM.

ROOF launched on June 14, 2011 (four years before NYLIM bought IndexIQ Advisors) as the IQ US Real Estate Small Cap ETF. The fund is designed to track the NYLI CBRE NextGen Real Estate Index and comes with an expense ratio of 60bps. As of yesterday, ROOF had $142.1 million in AUM.

EQUL launched on October 21, 2021 as the IQ Engender Equality ETF, in alignment with the nonprofit Girls Who Code. The fund is designed to track the Solactive Equileap US Select Gender Equality Index, developed using analysis from Equileap, and comes with an expense ratio of 45bps. As of yesterday, EQUL had $7.3 million in AUM.

Greg Barrato, senior vice president at NYLI, has served as a portfolio manager on EQUL and IQIN since inception, and has PMed ROOF since 2011. Francis Ok, managing director, joined the PM team for all three ETFs in 2023.

ROOF, IQIN, and EQUL are each listed on the NYSE Arca. The liquidating ETFs' other service providers include: SS&C's Alps Distributors, Inc. as distributor; Bank of New York Mellon as administrator, custodian, securities lending agent, and transfer agent; Chapman and Cutler, LLP as counsel; NYLIFE Distributors LLC as marketer; and PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP as independent accounting firm. 

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