Claymore Advisors, LLC today announced that the Board of Trustees of Claymore/Raymond James SB-1 Equity Fund, a diversified closed-end fund (NYSE:RYJ), has approved in principle the conversion of the Fund into an exchange-traded fund (“ETF”) and is further considering the process by which such conversion would be implemented.
The primary investment objective of the Fund is to provide capital appreciation. The Fund invests substantially all of its net assets in the equity securities that are rated, at the time of purchase, Strong Buy 1 (“SB-1”) by the Raymond James equity research analysts.
Claymore noted that converting the Fund to an ETF should be in the best interest of the Fund’s investors by continuing to provide the liquidity associated with exchange listing while potentially reducing the discount from net asset value at which the Fund’s shares currently trade.
ETFs offer a variety of benefits to investors including a high level of liquidity and transparency of holdings. ETFs are portfolios of securities that trade like individual stocks on major stock exchanges and can be bought or sold throughout the trading day.
ETFs are constructed to track the holdings and performance of a defined index of securities, before expenses, and enable investors to purchase a cost-efficient and widely-varied portfolio of securities.