The folks at an 18-year-old, $2.7-billion-AUM, quantitative fund firm in Southern California are teaming up to build a trio of ETFs. At least one of those planned funds is designed for SMA seeding from individual investors.

Mebane T. "Meb" Faber Cambria Co-Founder, CEO, Chief Investment Officer, Portfolio Manager

Yesterday, Meb Faber, co-founder and chief investment officer of Cambria Investment Management, L.P. [profile], and Wes Gray, majority owner and strategic advisor of ETF Architect [profile], unveiled plans to launch the Cambria Tax Aware ETF (TAX) later this year. The ETF Architect and Cambria teams also filed to launch the Cambria Endowment Style ETF (ENDW) and the Cambria Global Shareholder Yield ETF (AYLD). Cambria (a quantitative asset manager based in Manhattan Beach, California) will serve as sponsor and subadvisor for the three ETFs, while Empowered Funds, LLC (dba EA Advisers and ETF Architect) will serve as investment advisor.

According to the Cambria team, TAX is designed for individual investors (i.e. retail investors) to seed the new fund with separate accounts, exchanging current holdings for shares in the new ETF. The launch is planned for December, and the Cambria team reveals that they're planning with an ETF series open to such seeding from SMAs.

AYLD and TAX will come with expense ratios of 59 basis points, while ENDW will come with an expense ratio of 64 basis points. All three planned ETFs will be actively managed, and Faber and Jonathan Keetz, Cambria's chief operating officer, will PM the funds.

TAX's strategy will combine a value equity investing approach with a search for companies with low dividend yield. The fund will also be specifically focused on equities that have more than $5 billion each in market capitalization.

ENDW will be a fund of funds that will also invest in exchange-traded futures contracts. The PMs will use an absolute return strategy with an aggressive risk profile and attempt to provide exposure to "all of the major asset classes."

AYLD will be powered by a strategy that focuses on investing in high shareholder yield stocks.

Faber describes TAX as giving "investors a powerful tool to help optimize tax efficiency, especially for portfolios with significant embedded gains."

"We are thrilled to partner with ETF Architect to bring this innovative technology to market, as it was previously only accessible to accredited investors," Faber states.

Gray puts the planned launch of TAX in the context of his team being "committed to driving innovation in the ETF space."

"We are excited to collaborate with Cambria to launch this pioneering product and provide investors with a more efficient and effective way to manage their tax obligations," Gray states.

AYLD, ENDW, and TAX will be series of EA Series Trust. The planned ETFs' other service providers will include: SS&C's Alps Distributors, Inc. as distributor; Practus LLP as independent accounting firm; U.S. Bancorp Fund Services, LLC (dba U.S. Bank Global Fund Services) as administrator, fund accountant, and transfer agent; and U.S. Bank National Association as custodian and securities lending agent. 

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