American Century Investments Launches Exchange Traded Funds Focused On U.S. Quality Value And Diversified Corporate Bonds

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Jan 16, 2018, 09:15 ET

KANSAS CITY, Mo., Jan. 16, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- American Century Investments today launched American Century^® STOXX^®¹ U.S. Quality Value (VALQ) and American Century^® Diversified Corporate Bond (KORP) Exchange Traded Funds (ETF), the first two ETFs to be offered by the global asset management firm. Listed on the NYSE ARCA, the new funds leverage American Century's 60 years of expertise developing client-centric investment solutions.

"Our goal with the launch of American Century^® ETFs is to provide innovative strategies that strive to deliver better outcomes for investors," said Edward Rosenberg, senior vice president and head of ETFs for American Century. "We are excited to be launching our first two ETFs, which we see as 'core' investments that can serve as a central, foundational component of a long-term portfolio."

Senior Vice President Peruvemba Satish, a portfolio manager on one of the new ETFs and director of global analytics for American Century, says the firm leveraged its cross-discipline investment capabilities and analytical skills to create the new funds. "Informed by decades of experience, our strategies apply our unique insights to solve common investment problems and help investors achieve their goals," Satish said.

American Century's global analytics team played an integral role in the design and architecture of the two new funds, according to Satish. In partnership with the firm's investment teams, the global analytics group spearheads empirical research in the areas of global macro, alpha generation and product engineering. Created in 2014, the global analytics team identifies market trends, opportunities and risks. It also helps design new investment strategies and solutions consistent with clients' needs.

American Century STOXX^® U.S. Quality Value ETF is an index-based value fund designed for investors pursuing capital appreciation. It seeks to deliver a more attractive risk/reward profile than the market capitalization-weighted value investing typical of traditional index funds. The fund utilizes American Century's Intelligent Beta² methodology, which strives to dampen the cyclicality of value investing in pursuit of strong risk-adjusted returns throughout the market cycle.

The portfolio management team's analysis begins with the broad universe of U.S. large-cap stocks based on the STOXX^® 900 Index³. The team applies measures such as profitability, earnings quality, management quality and earnings revisions to identify high-quality companies at attractive valuations. It complements them with sustainable dividend-payers to help mitigate risk when value investing falls out of favor.

The fund is comanaged by Satish and Rene Casis. Satish joined American Century in 2014 to establish and lead the firm's global analytics team. Casis joined American Century in early 2018 after serving in ETF portfolio management roles with BlackRock, Barclays Global Investors (BGI) and 55 Institutional.

American Century Diversified Corporate Bond ETF is an actively-managed corporate bond fund designed for investors seeking current income. The fund emphasizes investment-grade debt while dynamically allocating a portion of the portfolio to high yield in a single, systematically managed portfolio. By integrating fundamental and quantitative expertise, the portfolio management team strives for enhanced return potential versus traditional capitalization-weighted passive portfolios.

The fund is comanaged by Kevin Akioka, Jeffrey Houston, Gavin Fleischman and Le Tran. Vice President and Senior Portfolio Manager Akioka joined American Century in 2010 and leads the fixed-income group's corporate credit team. Vice President and Senior Portfolio Manager Houston has been with the company since 1990. Vice Presidents and Portfolio Managers Tran and Fleischman joined the firm's fixed income team in 2004 and 2008, respectively.

Today's launch of the two new ETFs caps a busy seven months for American Century. Since announcing its ETF initiative in the spring of 2017, the firm has made steady progress hiring key personnel, establishing relationships with ETF liquidity providers and laying the groundwork for a sustained presence in the ETF marketplace. Rosenberg joined the firm from Northern Trust's FlexShares in June 2017, followed by the November hiring of Matt Lewis as vice president and head of ETF implementation & capital markets. In recent weeks, the firm hired Casis for the value ETF portfolio manager position and filled multiple product specialist roles. American Century also has entered into an agreement with Precidian Investments, LLC to license the firm's ActiveShares^SM methodology in support of the potential launch of actively managed, non-transparent⁴ ETFs, subject to regulatory approval.

American Century Investments is a leading global asset manager focused on delivering investment results and building long-term client relationships while supporting research that can improve human health and save lives. Founded in 1958, American Century Investments' 1,300 employees serve investment professionals, institutions, corporations and individual investors from offices in New York; London; Hong Kong; Mountain View, Calif.; and Kansas City, Mo. Jonathan S. Thomas is president and chief executive officer, and Victor Zhang and David MacEwen serve as co-chief investment officers. Delivering investment results to clients enables American Century Investments to distribute over 40 percent of its dividends to the Stowers Institute for Medical Research, a 500-person, non-profit basic biomedical research organization. The Institute owns more than 40 percent of American Century Investments and has received dividend payments of $1.4 billion since 2000. For more information about American Century Investments, visit www.americancenturyetfs.com.

¹STOXX is a registered trademark of STOXX Ltd.

²Intelligent Beta methodology: Emphasizes the use of alternative index construction rules to traditional market capitalization-based indexes. Intelligent Beta emphasizes capturing fundamental investment factors or market inefficiencies in a rules-based and transparent way.

³The STOXX 900 index covers the largest 900 companies in the USA. The STOXX 900 Index is the intellectual property (including registered trademarks) of STOXX Limited, Zurich, Switzerland ("STOXX"), Deutsche Börse Group or their licensors, which is used under license. American Century STOXX U.S. Quality Value ETF is neither sponsored nor promoted, distributed or in any other manner supported by STOXX, Deutsche Börse Group or their licensors, research partners or data providers and STOXX, Deutsche Börse Group and their licensors, research partners or data providers do not give any warranty, and exclude any liability (whether in negligence or otherwise) with respect thereto generally or specifically in relation to any errors, omissions or interruptions in the STOXX 900 Index or its data.

American Century STOXX^® U.S. Quality Value ETF (VALQ) is not actively managed and the portfolio managers do not attempt to take defensive positions under any market conditions, including declining markets. The portfolio managers also do not generally add or remove a security from the fund until such security is similarly added or removed from the underlying index. Therefore, the fund may hold an underperforming security or not hold an outperforming security until the underlying index reacts. This may result in underperformance compared to the market generally. In addition, there is no assurance that the underlying index will be determined, composed or calculated accurately. While the index provider provides descriptions of what the underlying index is designed to achieve, the index provider does not guarantee the quality, accuracy or completeness of data in respect of its indices, and does not guarantee that the underlying index will be in line with the described index methodology. Gains, losses or costs to the fund caused by errors in the underlying index may therefore be borne by the fund and its shareholders.

American Century Diversified Corporate Bond ETF (KORP) is an actively-managed corporate bond fund. Investment return and principal value of security investments will fluctuate. The value at the time of redemption may be more or less than the original cost. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Generally, as interest rates rise, the value of the securities held in the fund will decline. The opposite is true when interest rates decline. The lower rated securities in which the fund invests are subject to greater credit risk, default risk and liquidity risk. KORP is an actively managed ETF that does not seek to replicate the performance of a specified index. To determine whether to buy or sell a security, the portfolio managers consider, among other things, various fund requirements and standards, along with economic conditions, alternative investments, interest rates and various credit metrics. If the portfolio manager considerations are inaccurate or misapplied, the fund's performance may suffer.

⁴Active non-transparent ETF: Exchange traded funds that are actively managed by a portfolio manager or team of managers without daily disclosure of portfolio holdings.

Exchange Traded Funds (ETF) are bought and sold through exchange trading at market price (not NAV), and are not individually redeemed from the fund. Shares may trade at a premium or discount to their NAV in the secondary market. Brokerage commissions will reduce returns.

You should consider a fund's investment objectives, risks, and charges and expenses carefully before you invest. The fund's prospectus or summary prospectus, which can be obtained at AmericanCenturyETFs.com, contains this and other information about the fund, and should be read carefully before investing.

Foreside Fund Services, Distributor not affiliated with American Century Investments Services, Inc.