BetaPro Management Inc. will hold special meetings of unitholders on July 24 to consider changing the underlying index of four exchange traded funds, the company said Thursday.

“The proposed changes are in response to market demand and should in both cases significantly improve the market liquidity of these ETFs,” says Howard Atkinson, president of Toronto-based BetaPro.

At the special meetings, unitholders of Horizons BetaPro DJ-AIG Agricultural Grains Bull Plus ETF and Horizons BetaPro DJ-AIG Agricultural Grains Bear Plus ETF will be asked to consider revising the investment objectives of the two ETFs by replacing the Dow Jones-UBS grains subindex with the S&P Agribusiness North America index.

The S&P Agribusiness North America index is designed to provide liquid exposure to the upstream and downstream supply chain of the agribusiness sector. The index includes some of the largest publicly traded agribusiness companies trading on the U.S and Canadian exchanges. By moving to an equity based agricultural index, BetaPro believes the HBP Agri ETFs may benefit from improved market liquidity because public trading of the equity issuers in the index and exchange will close at the same time.

Unitholders of Horizons BetaPro S&P/TSX Global Mining Bull Plus ETF and Horizons BetaPro S&P/TSX Global Mining Bear Plus ETF will be asked to consider revising the investment objectives of the two ETFs by replacing the S&P/TSX global mining index with the S&P/TSX global base metals index.

The S&P/TSX global base metals index is a subset of the S&P/TSX global mining index. By moving to an exclusive base metals index, BetaPro says investors will receive a pure play in the sector, compared to the S&P/TSX global mining index which included significant weighting to gold.

In addition, the S&P/TSX global base metals index has a comparatively smaller underlying basket than the S&P/TSX global mining index which BetaPro believes may also result in improved market liquidity.

“The proposed changes are in response to market demand and should in both cases significantly improve the market liquidity of these ETFs,” says Howard Atkinson, president of Toronto-based BetaPro.

IE