Wasatch files to convert its international value fund into an ETF
The $29.2 million fund's gross expenses of 6.34% and 5.84% sit against net ratios of 1.05% and 0.90% that a waiver holds through Jan. 31, 2027, 19 days after the ETF registration could first take effect.
Key takeaways
Wasatch filed a preliminary prospectus on Thursday, Oct. 29, 2026, proposing to reorganize the Wasatch International Value Fund, a mutual fund, into a new Wasatch International Value ETF, to be listed on NYSE Arca. The document is marked subject to completion.
The fund costs more than six times what shareholders pay. Wasatch's fund page listed $29.2 million across both classes as of Oct. 26, 2026, with a gross expense ratio of 6.34% on the Investor class, ticker WAIVX, against a net ratio of 1.05%, and 5.84% on the Institutional class, ticker WGIVX, against 0.90%. A waiver holds those net ratios through Jan. 31, 2027, and the contractual management fee is 0.80%.
The ETF registration could become effective as soon as Jan. 12, 2027, 75 days after this filing and 19 days before the waiver ends on Jan. 31, 2027, unless the date is moved. Wasatch moved the effectiveness date on the filing for the Wasatch Small/Mid Cap ETF WSMD, which it called its first actively managed ETF. That fund listed on July 29, 2026.
The fee table describes a unitary fee under which Wasatch would pay the fund's operating expenses, shows other expenses as a zero estimate, and does not set the management fee. WSMD's summary prospectus, dated July 15, 2026 and amended Aug. 31, 2026, lists a management fee and total annual expenses of 0.75%, with no waiver.
The filing says both share classes would be converted into the ETF, and contemplates transferring all of the mutual fund's assets and liabilities to the ETF in a tax-free reorganization before the ETF begins operating, on or about a date it does not give. It does not say whether shareholders will be asked to vote, or how many ETF shares a holder of WAIVX or WGIVX would receive.
The performance and accounting history the ETF would assume is the Institutional class's, not the Investor class's. The filing says that record reflects a different fee structure from the ETF's, and that the results might have differed had the mutual fund been an ETF.
The ETF would keep the mutual fund's objective of long-term growth of capital and strategies the filing calls substantially identical. David Powers would remain lead portfolio manager, and Nakul Chaturvedi associate portfolio manager, the jobs they have held since the fund opened on Nov. 29, 2024.
Want more of our stories in Google’s Top Stories? Add etf.net as a preferred source on Google
