Dimensional Seeks ETF Share Classes Pioneered by Vanguard

Dimensional Fund Advisors has asked the Securities and Exchange Commission to allow its mutual funds to offer exchange-traded fund share classes — a structure that the Vanguard Group has offered exclusively for more than two decades.

If the SEC approves the request, DFA could be the first firm to adopt the arrangement since Vanguard’s patent on it expired in May.

DFA said it believes the multi-class structure “will allow investors to choose the manner in which they wish to hold interests in a fund based on the share class characteristics that are most important to the investor.”

Vanguard, working under SEC orders that allowed it to offer ETFs from mutual fund shares since the early 2000s, “has become one of the major sponsors of index-based ETFs, with more than $2 trillion in assets invested through exchange-traded classes, representing almost 30% of all ETF assets in the United States,” DFA noted in its application. ”Vanguard funds with exchange-traded classes also have more than $2.7 trillion in assets invested through their mutual fund classes.“