ANN ARBOR, Mich.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Exponential ETFs and Brandometry today launch the Brand Value ETF (NYSE: BVAL), which is designed to outperform the broader market by identifying companies with strong brands whose latent value has not yet been realized by their stock price by tracking the BrandTransact 50 Index. The exchange-traded fund (ETF) will trade on the New York Stock Exchange.
The BrandTransact 50 Index (BTW50), Powered by Wilshire℠, represents a primarily large-cap portfolio that provides the benefits of intelligent security selection in a passive rules-based format. The index equally weights the top 50 companies within the Wilshire 5000 Total Market Index™ that exhibit a discount of brand and intangible asset value to market cap. In short, this index seeks to identify companies with unrealized brand value that have high potential for margin expansion.
“We believe Intangible assets represent the next frontier in stock valuation. The Brand Value ETF captures and capitalizes on the work of Brandometry to quantify the brand value of publicly traded companies,” says Phil Bak, CEO of Exponential ETFs. “We created Exponential ETFs to give innovative asset managers access to the world class ETF product management team to bring their products to market thoughtfully and efficiently, which is exemplified in our partnership with Brandometry.”
The BrandTransact 50® Index is underpinned by brand performance data from Tenet Partners, a co-developer of the index. Exponential ETFs, a wholly owned platform of ACSI Funds, is an ETF issuer that partners with select asset managers to bring innovative investment approaches to market through its world class ETF management platform.
“Brand value is the reflection of everything one knows or believes they know about a company,” says Larry Medin, Brandometry’s Founder and CEO. “The key is knowing when to own brands that are undervalued and that's what the Brand Value ETF strives to deliver for investors.”
The Brand Value ETF follows the 2016 launch of the American Customer Satisfaction Core Alpha ETF (BATS: ACSI), a first-of-its-kind product that utilizes a proprietary methodology to invest in stocks based on the individual companies’ customer satisfaction scores.
“Today most corporate value sits under an all-encompassing umbrella called ‘Brand’ and we can now combine qualitative and quantitative measures to identify total brand value. It is vital the market pays attention to these new ways of identifying unrealized value for investors,” says Susan Avarde, Co-Founder of Brandometry and former Head of Global Brand, Citigroup Inc.
About Exponential ETFs
Exponential ETFs offers exchange traded funds in partnership with select asset managers. These managers are chosen for their ability to utilize differentiated approaches to investing that seeks to provide superior results for investors. Backed by over 30 years of ETF industry expertise, Exponential ETFs are built and managed using the industry’s best practices, and are overseen by an experienced product management team and an industry leading capital markets infrastructure. Exponential ETFs is wholly owned by ACSI Funds.
About Brandometry
Brandometry provides research for advisors and clients striving for alpha performance by signaling when to own leading brands. Brandometry has pioneered a new, non-traditional index based on “Brand.” The BrandTransact 50® index identifies companies worthy of investment that share high value potential and positive brand resonance. The Index uses a rules-based methodology to identify strong brands that maintain brand equity value not reflected in share price.
About Tenet Partners
The underlying analysis of the BTW50 index includes a cross reference to historical brand value metrics provided by Tenet Partners, a highly recognized authority on brand measurement and valuation that currently analyzes over 1,000 US publicly traded companies comprising the Tenet℠ CoreBrand® 1000. Tenet uses a highly stable, quantitative benchmark tracking system with a proprietary model correlating corporate brand to market capitalization. Tenet has been compiling quarterly brand data for US companies consistently since 1994.
About ACSI Funds
ACSI Funds is a boutique asset manager that creates investment products based upon proprietary customer satisfaction data from the nationally recognized American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI). The ACSI was created in 1994 by Dr. Claes Fornell, University of Michigan Professor Emeritus, and measures over 350 brands, engaging over 100,000 household customers each year to identify trends in customer satisfaction and provide benchmarking insights for companies, industry trade associates, and government agencies.
The American Customer Satisfaction Core Alpha ETF was named ETF Innovation of the Year at the 2017 Fund Action ETF Innovation Awards.
The firm and the ACSI ETF were also nominated for the 2017 ETF.com Awards as the most innovative new ETF and the new ETF issuer of the year.
About Wilshire Associates
Wilshire Associates (Wilshire®), a leading global financial services firm that provides consulting services, analytics solutions and customized investment solutions to plan sponsors, investment managers and financial intermediaries. The firm was founded in 1972, providing revolutionary technology and acting as an early innovator in the application of investment analytics and research to investment managers in the institutional marketplace. Wilshire calculates ‘Powered by Wilshire’ indexes based on third-party supplied methodology and makes no representation about the intended purpose or methodology used to construct them.
An investor should consider the Fund’s investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses carefully before investing. The prospectus or summary prospectus contain this and other important information about the Fund and are available at acsietf.com or by calling 1-800-617-0004. Please read the prospectus or summary prospectus carefully before investing.
Investing involves risk. Principal loss is possible. The Index relies heavily on proprietary quantitative models as well as information and data supplied by third parties (Models and Data). Because the Index is composed based on such Models and Data, when such Models and Data prove to be incorrect or incomplete, the Index and Fund may not perform as expected. As with all index funds, the performance of the Fund and its Index may differ from each other for a variety of reasons. For example, the Fund incurs operating expenses and portfolio transaction costs not incurred by the Index. In addition, the Fund may not be fully invested in the securities of the Index at all times or may hold securities not included in the Index. The Fund has the same risks as the underlying securities traded on the exchange through the day. Redemptions are limited and commissions are charged on each trade, and ETFs may trade at a premium or discount to their net asset value.
Shares of the Brand Value ETF may be sold throughout the day on the exchange through any brokerage account. However, shares may only be redeemed directly from the Fund by Authorized Participants, in very large creation/redemption units. There can be no assurance that an active trading market for shares of an ETF will develop or be maintained.
Alpha, often considered the active return on an investment, gauges the performance of an investment against a market index used as a benchmark.
The BrandTransact 50® Index seeks to identify companies worthy of investment that share high growth potential and positive brand resonance. The Index uses a rules-based methodology to identify strong brands that maintain brand equity value not recognized in share price. The Index represents those top 50 companies, equally-weighted, determined per the scoring process. The Wilshire 5000 Total Market Index™ measures the performance of all U.S. equity securities with readily available price data. Approximately, 5,000 capitalization-weighted security returns are used to adjust the index. It is not possible to invest directly in an index.
ACSI Funds, a registered investment adviser, serves as investment adviser to the Brand Value ETF through its Exponential ETFs platform, and is paid a fee for its services.
Criteria related to the ETF Innovation of the Year award and ETF Newcomer of the year nomination can be found here: http://bit.ly/2ptWzCU The Fund did not win the award for ETF Newcomer of the Year.
The Brand Value ETF is distributed by Quasar Distributors, LLC.
