MutualFundWire.com: A $1.64T-AUM AM Preps a 3YO ETF's Liquidation

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Tuesday, September 23, 2025

A $1.64T-AUM AM Preps a 3YO ETF's Liquidation

The folks at a $1.64-trillion-AUM*, publicly traded fund firm in the San Francisco Bay Area are preparing to shut down a three-year-old fund from a Massachusetts subsidiary.

On Friday (September 19), the Franklin Templeton [profile] team revealed plans to liquidate the Putnam BioRevolution ETF (SYNB on the NYSE Arca, Inc.) later this fall. Boston-based Putnam Investment Management, LLC serves as investment advisor to the liquidating ETF, while San Mateo, California-based Franklin Advisers, Inc. serves as subadvisor.

SYNB's board approved the shutdown plan on Friday. Per that plan, the fund will stop accepting creation unit purchase orders on October, then stop accepting redemption orders on November 13. Trading in the fund is scheduled to be suspended on November 14, and the planned liquidation date is November 21.

The expense ratio for SYNB is 70 basis points. As of yesterday (September 22), the ETF had about $5.25 million in AUM. Franklin Templeton's filing and press release last week on SYNB do not explain why the team plans to dissolve the ETF, but perhaps the fund's small AUM is to blame.

Will Rives, a Putnam portfolio manager and analyst, serves as the sole PM of SYNB and has done so since inception. The Putnam folks launched SYNB (and another ETF) on September 29, 2022, more than a year before Franklin Templeton bought Putnam from a multinational insurer.

SYNB is an actively managed, non-diversified series of Putnam ETF Trust. The shuttering ETF's other service providers include:

the Bank of New York Mellon (BNY Mellon) as custodian, dividend-paying agent, and transfer agent;

Franklin Distributors, LLC as distributor;

PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP as independent accounting firm; and

Ropes & Gray LLP as counsel.