Since its establishment in 2006, the Maples Group maintains a unique position in the Irish market in providing a one-stop-shop for legal advice, registrations and listing services for Exchange Traded Funds (“ETFs”). The Group has earned industry-wide recognition for providing bespoke, innovative, client focussed solutions for the establishment and market entry of ETFs on a multi-jurisdictional basis.
Combining expert local knowledge and full project management functionality, the Maples Group delivers a comprehensive suite of solutions to ETF issuers and managers. We currently represent more than 210 ETFs and advise 20% of the issuers of Irish-domiciled ETFs including numerous innovative products comprising institutional banks as well as niche issuers.
The team recently won the Finance Dublin Financial Services ETF Deal of the Year 2022 in advising a well-established investment manager firm on their initial expansion into the European ETF market. We were also the recipient of the Finance Dublin ETF Deal of the Year in 2021, involving the cross-border merger of three mutual funds into a newly established umbrella ETF authorised as a UCITS, which represented a novel fund conversion from mutual to exchange-traded.
Our unique experience of having led on the first European mutual fund conversion to an ETF in 2021 required integration of the necessary elements of the ETF ecosystem into a previously existing mutual fund context.
The Maples Group provides a market-leading offering, encompassing legal advice, registration and passporting services as well as assisting clients with applications for admission to list on major stock exchanges in Europe.
We are also at the forefront of the approval process of ETFs with the Central Bank of Ireland and take an active role in industry development on ETF matters through our role on the Irish Funds ETF Working Group and with leadership committee representation as members of Women in ETFs.
For further details on our wider ETF service offering please visit our Global Registration Services and Listing Services pages.
In this panel discussion, the Maples Group ETF team examine one of the emerging trends in the ETF space, the conversion of Mutual Funds into Exchange Traded Funds (“ETFs”).
We examine the legal and operational considerations to be taken into account in the ETF ecosystem when considering a Mutual Fund ETF conversion. We shed light on the core considerations for investors and managers to assess from a regulatory perspective including relevant marketing permissions, market notification filings, assessment of the current market that the mutual fund is registered as well as further Global Registration aspects.
We also discuss recent Listing trends and timing considerations for managers across the different Listing Exchanges and outline how the Maples Group ETF team can assist in the Mutual Fund conversion process.
