Barclays Global Investors Canada Ltd. says that unitholders of the iUnits Government of Canada 10-Year Bond Fund today voted to approve a change to the investment objective of the fund. The fund’s new name will be the iUnits Canadian Bond Broad Market Index Fund.

As of December 16, units of the fund will be listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol “XBB”.

The fund’s new investment objective is to replicate the return of the Scotia Capital Universe Bond Index by investing in a regularly rebalanced portfolio of bonds that closely matches the characteristics of the SC Universe Bond Index. The SC Universe Bond Index consists of a broadly diversified range of investment grade Canadian government and corporate bonds with a term to maturity of more than one year. The fund’s previous investment objective was to replicate the return of the benchmark 10-year Government of Canada bond.

“This change will give the fund a more diversified exposure to the broad Canadian investment grade bond market,” said Howard Atkinson, head of public funds, Barclays Canada.

“Additionally, under the new investment objective, we expect that the Fund will be able to make quarterly rather than semi-annual distributions,” he said.


Atkinson also noted “We are especially pleased with the level of unitholder support for the changes. Over 90% of the votes cast were in favour of the proposals.”

Barclays Canada expects that the changes will be fully implemented by December 22.