BAFE vs TACU

BAFEBBrown Advisory Flexible Equity ETF

TACUAT. Rowe Price Active Core U.S. Equity ETF

In short

BAFE Brown Advisory's first ETF packages a decades-old bargain-hunting philosophy: buy good businesses when the market misprices them, whether screens call them value or growth. Roughly 40 names, 0.54% net of a waiver through January 31, 2027.

TACU T. Rowe Price's quant-plus-fundamental take on core large-cap U.S. stock, benchmarked to the Russell 1000. Gross fee 0.14%, fully waived to zero through January 30, 2027.

Stated mandate

BAFE The Fund seeks long-term growth of capital.

TACU The fund seeks long-term capital growth through a primarily U.S. equity portfolio. It combines quantitative models with fundamental, bottom-up analysis and seeks excess returns relative to the Russell 1000 Index.

Why people hold it

• BAFE The flexible part is literal: it hunts bargains across large, mid and small caps and ignores the value/growth label, so a cheap good business qualifies either way.brownadvisory.combrownadvisory.com 2
• 0.54% net of a waiver through January 31, 2027 (0.57% gross) lands below the US active equity median, which is lean for a hands-on stock picker.
• Roughly 40 holdings, so each name actually moves the fund. That is the point of hiring a stock picker instead of buying the whole market.
• It did not start from scratch: Brown Advisory seeded its November 2024 debut by converting taxable managed accounts, and it is a multi-billion-dollar fund.seic.com

• TACU Fee fully waived: 0.14% gross, zero net through January 30, 2027. That sits below every top-scoring peer in the category, including DFAU at 0.12% with no waiver.troweprice.com
• Quant models feed bottom-up stock picking with tilts to profitability, quality and value, chasing excess return over the Russell 1000 while holding tracking error tight.troweprice.com
• Several hundred large-cap names, so no single position runs the show. One of the stronger profiles in a crowded active U.S. equity field.troweprice.com

Worth knowing

• BAFE Systematic rivals cost a fraction: DFAU runs 0.12%, AVLC 0.15%. Here the money buys human judgment, not a cheaper wrapper.
• Shares change hands lightly for a fund this size, so bid-ask spreads can run wider than on headline ETFs.
• The philosophy predates the fund by decades, but the ETF itself opened in November 2024, so its own live record is short and payouts land once or twice a year.sec.gov

• TACU Launched in December 2025, so the live record is short and the risk read rests on limited history.
• Still a small fund that trades lightly, which can mean wider spreads than the category's giants.
• Distributions are annual at most, with no declared income target. This is a growth mandate, not a cash-flow one.

Full BAFE profile⁠

Full TACU profile⁠