Silver Bullion Trust, formerly a closed-end fund, began trading May 26 on the Toronto Stock Exchange as an exchange-traded fund. Offered by Purpose Investments Inc., which became the manager and trustee in a transaction completed in February, the ETF holds substantially all of its assets in physical silver bullion.
The company says in a release that the conversion to an ETF is expected to provide more efficient trading, since the market price of the units should be closer to their net asset value.
The non-currency-hedged units trade under the ticker symbol SBT.B for Canadian-dollar-denominated units and SBT.U for units denominated in U.S. dollars. Also available is a new class of currency-hedged units, trading under the symbol SBT. The management fee, which covers most operating expenses, is 0.40%.
According to the prospectus, at least 90% of the assets of the ETF must be held in physical bullion. Up to 10% of the assets may be held in silver certificates or cash. The bullion will be held on a fully allocated and segregated basis in treasury vault facilities of a Canadian chartered bank, according to Purpose.