A: More than 95 percent of the fund unit owners are Canadian. It’s very difficult for Americans to trade Canadian ETFs. That’s just the way that the SEC (U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission) set things up.
Q: Do you expect to launch a U.S.-listed fund?
A: We do have a sister company in the U.S. and we are looking at it but there are number of regulatory issues. It’s only at the state level in the U.S. where marijuana is approved and it creates a lot of legal concerns with respect to banks and stock exchanges. The fact that no large U.S. stock exchange has listed a marijuana stock is very telling. How could we list a marijuana ETF if they won’t list a marijuana stock?
Q: The fund is trading about 8 percent below its level in April. How do you expect to attract more investors to the fund?
A: We launched very quickly and raised $120 million in the first week and a half. Unfortunately from there we saw marijuana stocks themselves take a substantial hit from a performance perspective. We haven’t really seen any outflows from the fund. We are extremely pleased with the progress of the fund.
This article was provided by Reuters.