The team at a New York City-based, liquid alts-focused fund firm is adopting and transforming a $95-million-AUM, active ETF (with a history stretching back nearly 13 years) into a new, passive one.

Gregory David "Greg" Bassuk AXS Investments LLC Chairman, CEO

Yesterday, Greg Bassuk, CEO of AXS Investments [profile], and Chris Acito, CEO of Gapstow Capital Partners, unveiled the launch of the AXS Real Estate Income ETF (RINC on the NYSE Arca). The non-diversified fund's inception date was yesterday, three days after the reorganization of its five-year-old predecessor fund, the High Yield ETF (HYLD, also on the NYSE Arca). (HYLD launched in June 2018 after the transformation of the eight-year-old AdvisorShares Peritus High Yield ETF, which debuted back in 2010.) RINC is a series of Investment Manager Series Trust II, while HYLD was a series of Exchange Listed Funds Trust.

RINC comes with an expense ratio of 89 basis points, which bakes in fee waiver promised for two years. That's 27bps cheaper than HYLD's expense ratio, which also included a fee waiver.

AXS Investments LLC serves as investment advisor to RINC, and AXS portfolio managers Parker Binion and Travis Trampe will PM the revamped fund. AXS succeeds Exchange Traded Concepts, LLC (ETC), who served as HYLD's investment advisor, and MacKay Shields LLC and WhiteStar Asset Management, who served as HYLD's subadvisors.

New AXS ally Gapstow serves the rebooted ETF's index provider, and the fund is designed to track the Gapstow Real Estate Income Index (GREI), which debuted on May 24, 2022.

Acito describes RINC as powered by a "differentiated approach to mREIT investing," and Bassuk describes the transformed fund as "a unique offering within [AXS'] range of alternative income-focused solutions." He notes that many yield-seeking investors "have become overly reliant on corporate junk bonds."

"With RINC, investors and advisors now have the ability to diversify the high-yield sleeve of their portfolios and complement a broader real estate or alternatives portfolio with unique exposure to the credit side of real estate and an alternative to high yield corporates," Bassuk states.

"mREITS in general are currently trading at compelling valuations and wide spreads by historical standards as the category has had to digest a rapid rise in interest rates, high office vacancies and a short flurry of banking crises, all in short order. But rates eventually normalize, demand for residential housing remains high, and a clear retrenchment of banks from real estate lending should provide significant opportunity to a range of mREITs to both take on and originate compelling new debt investments," Acito states. "An equal-weighted, well-diversified approach to accessing the space will be key as the category enters its next phase and the GREI index we created to underpin RINC is one we expect to effectively capture these changing market dynamics."

RINC's other service providers include: ALPS Distributors, Inc. as distributor (succeeding HYLD vendor Foreside Fund Services, LLC); Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. as custodian, fund accounting agent, and transfer agent (succeeding Bank of New York Mellon); Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP as counsel (a role it also served for HYLD); Mutual Fund Administration, LLC (MFAC) and UMB Fund Services, Inc. (UMBFS) as co-administrators (succeeding BNY Mellon); and Tait, Weller & Baker LLP as independent accounting firm (succeeding Cohen & Company, Ltd.). 

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