American Century Investments on Tuesday said it has entered into a licensing agreement with Precidian Investments LLC to use that company's ActiveShare structure to potentially launch actively managed, semi-transparent exchange-traded funds.

“Potentially launch” is the operative phrase because Precidian in September filed its fourth amended application with the Securities and Exchange Commission seeking approval for its actively managed ActiveShares ETF platform that employs a confidential account, or blind trust system in the creation and redemption of creation units, which are large blocks of ETF shares. This process aims to protect the proprietary investment strategies of a fund’s asset manager by providing liquidity without the daily fund holding disclosure required by traditional ETFs. 

As with mutual funds, ETF holdings under the ActiveShares structure would be publicly disclosed quarterly.

In prior Precidian filings, the SEC noted its concerns with the ActiveShares pricing methodology known as “verified intraday indicative value” (VIIV), a real-time pricing process based on the current trading spreads of the underlying holdings. The SEC said it’s an imprecise way to calculate share prices, and the regulator had further concerns that insiders may have access to portfolio moves in real time.

But with the Trump administration's mandate to cut red tape, and with new people running the show at the SEC charged with fulfilling that mandate, the odds for approval of the ActiveShares platform have likely improved.

American Century this year has positioned itself to become a player in the ETF space. In June, it hired Edward Rosenberg away from Northern Trust's FlexShares ETF business to lead its ETF initiative.

In October, the Kansas City, Mo.-based global asset manager filed registration statements with the SEC for two transparent ETFs—an index-based value ETF and an actively managed diversified corporate bond ETF—that it hopes to launch in mid-January.

American Century joins an existing roster of major financial services companies—JP Morgan Asset Management, BlackRock, Capital Research, Legg Mason, ClearBridge, Royce and Nationwide—that hope to roll out funds by licensing Precidian's intellectual property.