MutualFundWire.com: A 15YO Pac NW Boutique Enters the ETF Biz

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Tuesday, February 10, 2026

A 15YO Pac NW Boutique Enters the ETF Biz

The team at a 15-year-old, $1.287-billion-AUM* asset manager in Washington State are entering the exchange-traded fund side of the business, with help from an ally near Atlanta.

Today, Chris Tessin, founder and chief investment officer of Acuitas Investments, LLC, and Matt Nieman, partner and portfolio manager, unveil the launch of the Acuitas Small Cap Active ETF (AIMS on the Nasdaq). Seattle-based Acuitas serves as the new ETF's investment advisor, while Alpharetta, Georgia-based Vident Advisory, LLC (dba Vident Asset Management) serves as subadvisor.

AIMS' inception date is today. The new fund comes with an expense ratio of 75 basis points.

Nieman and Tessin serve as AIMS' two PMs.

Tessin puts the launch of AIMS in the context of small cap stocks seeing "rising earnings growth expectations, the potential benefits of lowered interest rates, tailwinds from a deregulatory environment, and a renewed investor focus on the innovations, in tech and elsewhere, being driven by small cap companies."

"We believe environments like this are precisely where broad, index-driven approaches are going to leave investors wondering how their boat managed to miss this rising tide," Tessin states. "Instead, an active approach will be essential to ensuring a portfolio is not just exposed to small caps but exposed to those small caps where true growth is taking place."

"Our approach is designed to source and invest with managers who've proven to have differentiated and diligent investment processes with a focus on the long term, while seeking to maintain a below-average volatility profile, no small thing for those investors who may have avoided small caps in the past due to the historical volatility in the category," Nieman states.

AIMS is an actively managed, diversified series of Series Portfolio Trust. The new ETF's other service providers include:

Cohen & Company, LLC as independent accounting firm;

ACA Foreside's Quasar Distributors, LLC as distributor;

Thompson Hine LLP as counsel;

U.S. Bancorp Fund Services, LLC (dba U.S. Bank Global Fund Services) as admininstrator, dividend disbursing agent, fund accountant, and transfer agent; and

U.S. Bank N.A. as custodian and securities lending agent.