A strong management team and sound investment process underpin Eaton Vance Floating-Rate ETF's Morningstar Medalist Rating of Silver. The portfolio maintains a cost advantage over competitors, priced within the lowest fee quintile among peers.  

 The strategy’s management team earns a High People Pillar rating. The strategy's effective approach earns a High Process Pillar rating. The strategy's parent organization earns the firm an Average Parent Pillar rating. People Pillar and Parent Pillar ratings for this strategy are indirectly assigned by a Morningstar analyst rather than algorithmically derived. Please see the notes following each pillar section for more details. The details of assigning methods can be found in each pillar section.

Analyst Rating

Morningstar's style-agnostic investment process evaluation looks for strategies that should be able to outperform their Morningstar Category index on a risk-adjusted basis over time. Eaton Vance Floating-Rate ETF earns a High Process Pillar rating.    The leading factor in the rating is the parent firm's five-year risk-adjusted success ratio of 62%. The measure indicates the percentage of a firm's funds that survived and outperformed their respective category's median Morningstar Risk-Adjusted Return for the period. The parent firm's excellent risk-adjusted performance, as shown by its average 10-year Morningstar Rating of 3.4 stars, also supports the rating. The size of the portfolio management team supports the process as well. With four portfolio managers at the helm, the fund is reasonably well-resourced.

 The investment strategy as stated in the fund's prospectus is as follows: 


The investment seeks to provide a high level of current income.  Under normal circumstances, the fund invests at least 80% of its net assets in floating-rate credit investments. Floating-rate credit investments may include, without limitation, senior floating rate loans of domestic and foreign borrowers, debt tranches of collateralized loan obligations, secured and unsecured floating-rate bonds, as well as secured and unsecured subordinated loans, second lien loans, and subordinated bridge loans and mezzanine investments.

High

Process

Eaton Vance Floating-Rate ETF earns a High People Pillar rating. Brandon Matsui, the longest-tenured manager on the strategy, boasts over 25 years of listed portfolio management experience. The average Morningstar Rating of the strategies they manage is 4.0 stars, demonstrating stellar risk-adjusted performance. The team boasts an experienced corps of listed portfolio managers, with three others supporting Brandon Matsui. Together, they average 21 years of listed portfolio management experience.  None of the portfolio managers here invest in this fund. This hurts the rating because manager investment would align their interests with the strategy's investors.

 Note: The People Pillar rating is indirectly assigned by an analyst. The longest-tenured manager of the fund also manages a different product rated by an analyst. Their analyst-assigned People Pillar rating is combined here with the People scores (algorithmic or analyst-assigned) for the fund’s other managers on a tenure-weighted basis.

People

Morgan Stanley Investment Management, the asset-management arm of Morgan Stanley MS, has made progress in integrating Eaton Vance's capabilities, but there remains more to be done. It retains its Average Parent rating.
Since acquiring Eaton Vance in March 2021, MSIM has been conservative in its approach to the merger. The firm kept Eaton Vance's legacy equity team a distinct platform from MSIM's own substantial capabilities, and it now offers several funds with potentially competing mandates. On the other hand, it moved relatively quickly to centralize the two legacy firms' fixed-income platforms, though several team leaders retired or departed the firm over 2021 and 2022. 
Although Counterpoint Global's concentrated growth strategies, historically among MSIM's largest offerings, have struggled through 2021 and 2022, some of Eaton Vance's boutiques, including value-equity shop Atlanta Capital, help create a more-diversified lineup. MSIM has leveraged Calvert's substantial experience in sustainable investing to launch a series of Calvert-branded strategies both in the United States and Europe, and Parametric allows MSIM to compete in the fast-growing area of customized separate accounts. The firm has yet to demonstrate, however, that it has leveraged its increased size and scale to streamline and improve its operations or to systematically lower fees for its investors.

Average

Parent

Eaton Vance Floating-Rate ETF

EVLN is actively managed, seeking high current income by holding sub-investment grade floating-rate loans and corporate debts issued globally.

Eaton Vance High Yield ETF

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Senior Loan ETF EVLN Sees Half Billion in Flows on Single Day

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MSIM's Active Senior Loan ETF Beats Competitors on Cost

Eaton Vance Ultra-Short Income ETF

As many investors extend duration, it's important not to overlook ultrashort debt ETFs. Ultrashort debt ETFs like the Eaton Vance Ultra-Short Income ETF (EVSB) offer many benefits: liquidity, lower sensitivity to interest rates, and income generation.

Why Ultrashort Debt ETFs Make Sense Right Now

When the Exchange conference starts on Monday, advisors will have a new active floating rate bond ETF to learn about. It's one that's backed by a firm with a rich heritage in the investment style.

Eaton Vance Loans Expertise to the ETF Market

Morgan Stanley Investment Management has added an active senior loan ETF to its lineup. The Eaton Vance Floating-Rate ETF (EVLN) is an actively managed strategy providing access to loan investing in a tradable format.

Eaton Vance Launches Active Senior Loan ETF EVLN

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Morgan Stanley Investment Management (“MSIM”) today announced the launch of its latest ETF, Eaton Vance Floating-Rate ETF (Ticker: “EVLN”), an actively managed senior loan strategy. EVLN is the twelfth ETF strategy brought to market since the launch of MSIM's ETF platform in February 2023 and is listed on the NYSE. “We are pleased to expand MSIM's ETF Platform with EVLN and continue to deepen our offering with strategies that reflect our differentiated investment capa.

News for Eaton Vance Floating-Rate ETF ETF (EVLN)