The team at a fixed-income-focused startup in the Bay Area is rolling out their first suite of funds and prepping their second.

Leland Carroll Clemons BondBloxx Investment Management Corporation CEO, Founder

Today, Leland Clemons, founder and CEO of BondBloxx Investment Management Corporation [profile (BIM), and Tony Kelly, co-founder, unveil the Larkspur, California-based firm's first seven ETFs, all of which are sector-specific, passively managed, high yield bond ETFs. The duo also confirms that they've filed with the SEC to create a complementary suite of ratings-segmented high yield bond ETFs.

Today's rollout comes four months after the initial launch of BIM last October. In addition to Clemons and Kelly, the BondBloxx team includes four other co-founders: , chief operating officer Joanna Gallegos; Mark Miller; Brian O'Donnell; and Elya Schwartzman. (According to BIM's form ADV filed back in December, Clemons owns between 25 and 49 percent of the firm, while the other five founders own between five and nine percent each.) They lay claim to being the first ETF shop focused solely on fixed income, and in their past lives the BIM founders have collectively helped build more than 350 ETFs with more than $1 trillion in combined AUM.

"Our conversations with investors have reinforced what we already knew — there is significant demand for more targeted fixed income products," Kelly states. "Our initial product suites aim to create a full toolkit for high yield invesetors looking to implement to implement their specific views on the market, and we anticipate extending this approach to other fixed income assets classes."

BIM's first seven ETFs all track offerings from index provider ICE Data Indices, LLC (IDI), specifically rules-based sub-indexes of the ICE BofA US Cash Pay High Yield Constrained Index. Their expense ratios are 35 basis points, Schwartzman is their PM, BIM is the investment advisor, and the funds are series of the new BondBloxx ETF Trust. The funds' inception date was Tuesday, and they're launching today on the NYSE Arca. (The funds already have about $4 million in AUM each.)

Those first seven BIM funds are:

The BondBloxx USD High Yield Bond Consumer Cyclicals Sector ETF (XHYC), which tracks the ICE Diversified US Cash Pay High Yield Consumer Cyclical Index;

The BondBloxx USD High Yield Bond Consumer Non-Cyclicals Sector ETF (XHYD), which tracks the ICE Diversified US Cash Pay High Yield Consumer Non-Cyclical Index;

The BondBloxx USD High Yield Bond Energy Sector ETF (XHYE), which tracks the ICE Diversified US Cash Pay High Yield Energy Index;

The BondBloxx USD High Yield Bond Financial & REIT Sector ETF (XHYF), which tracks the ICE Diversified US Cash Pay High Yield Financial & REIT Index;

The BondBloxx USD High Yield Bond Healthcare Sector ETF (XHYH), which tracks the ICE Diversified US Cash Pay High Yield Healthcare Index;

The BondBloxx USD High Yield Bond Industrial Sector ETF (XHYI), which tracks the ICE Diversified US Cash Pay High Yield Core Industrial Index; and

The BondBloxx USD High Yield Bond Telecom, Media & Technology Sector ETF (XHYT), which tracks the ICE Diversified US Cash Pay High Yield Telecom Media & Technology Index.

"Until today, fixed income investors could not execute sector-specific views in high yield bonds through ETFs," Clemons states.

The new funds' other service providers include: Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. (BBH) as administrator, custodian, and transfer agent; Cipperman Compliance Services, LLC's William Woolverton as chief compliance officer; Cohen & Company, Ltd. as independent accounting firm; Foreside Fund Services LLC as distributor; and Ropes & Gray LLP as counsel. 

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