MutualFundWire.com: A $9.1B-AUM AM Launches an MLP ETF

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Thursday, January 8, 2026

A $9.1B-AUM AM Launches an MLP ETF

The folks at a $9.1-billion-AUM asset manager near Kansas City are teaming up to roll out an ETF that focuses on the master limited partnership market.

Thomas Ibberson "Tom" Florence
Tortoise Capital Advisors, L.L.C.
Chairman, CEO

Last month, Mark Marifian, head of product at Tortoise Capital Advisors, L.L.C. [profile], and Matt Sallee, head of investments, unveiled the launch of the Tortoise MLP ETF (TMLP on the NYSE Arca). Overland Park, Kansas-based Tortoise serves as investment advisor and index provider for the new fund, while Oklahoma City, Oklahoma-based Exchange Traded Concepts, LLC (ETC) serves as subadvisor.

TMLP's inception date was December 23, 2025, and the new ETF comes with an expense ratio of 50 basis points. The new fund now has about $35 million in AUM**.

The new ETF is designed to track the Tortoise MLP Index (TCMLP). TMLP is powered by a team of four ETC portfolio managers: Todd Alberico, Brian Cooper, Andrew Serowik, and Gabriel Tan.

"TMLP brings the MLP market into the modern ETF era at a cost that will meaningfully impact potential investment returns versus the competition," states Tom Florence, chairman and CEO of Tortoise. "With this fund, investors can get 100% pure MLP exposure in a wrapper built for today's expectations around tax efficiency and transparency."

Sallee notes that the Tortoise team has built and managed the Tortoise MLP Index for "more than a decade."

"Launching an ETF that pairs that index with a tax-efficient RIC structure is a natural next step," Sallee states. "It lets us bring our MLP expertise to investors in a format they already understand and use every day."

Marifian describes TMLP as the answer "for the investors who have been asking for a straightforward way to access MLPs without the K-1s, without the fund-level corporate tax, and without the NAV distortions that have plagued past structures."

"We see this as a modern enabler for a segment of the market that continues to evolve," Marifian states.

TMLP is a passively managed, non-diversified series of Tortoise Capital Series Trust. The new ETF's other service providers include:

Chapman & Cutler LLP as special tax counsel;

Morrison & Foerster LLP as counsel to the independent trustees;

PINE Advisors LLC as provider of a chief compliance officer and a principal financial officer;

ACA Foreside's Quasar Distributors, LLC as distributor and principal underwriter;

Tait, Weller & Baker LLP as independent accounting firm;

U.S. Bank Global Fund Services as administrator, dividend disbursing agent, index receipt agent, and transfer agent;

U.S. Bank, N.A. as custodian; and

Vedder Price P.C. as counsel to the trust.