FYI: Eaton Vance Corp.’s NextShares funds, a first-of-their-kind hybrid of actively and passively managed products, have generated minimal pickup from financial advisers so far, throwing the funds’ future into doubt, CEO Thomas Faust said this week.
In the lead-up to NextShares’ 2016 debut, Boston-based Eaton Vance (NYSE: EV) hailed the funds as a potential game-changer for the investment industry. Like active funds, NextShares products are managed by an investment professional, but like passive funds, investors can trade shares in the funds on the secondary market. Faust and other executives claimed that the NextShares structure could help active managers like Eaton Vance make up the ground they’re rapidly losing to index funds.
The key to getting NextShares off the ground, they said, was a distribution deal with UBS Financial Services (NYSE: UBS), the firm's first with a major broker-dealer. But in an earnings call Wednesday, Faust said that NextShares sales have been slow since UBS made the funds available to its advisers in November, because of changes to the ways UBS can handle the product.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.bizjournals.com/boston/news/2018/08/30/eaton-vance-ceo-questions-future-of-firm-s.html
