ETF Intel Q&A: F/m Investments

Gabrielle Vennitti, Head of ETF Listings at Nasdaq, speaks with Alex Morris, CEO, F/m Investments, about how F/m Investments is reshaping fund infrastructure through the first SEC‑approved dual‑share‑class ETF, starting with TBIL.

1. You recently had an exciting and innovative launch involving TBIL. Can you share more details about what's new?

   Think about what an advisor actually deals with day-to-day. You have a client in a brokerage account and another in a retirement plan —you want both of them in same strategy, but the vehicle doesn't work for one of them. So you end up managing two separate products, reconciling performance differences, explaining to clients why their statements look slightly different. That's not an investment problem. That's a structural problem, and on February 11th, we fixed it.

   TBIL — our flagship U.S. Treasury 3-Month Bill strategy — is now available in both an ETF and a mutual fund share class within a single fund. The ETF is TBIL. The mutual fund share class is TBFMX. One portfolio, one set of holdings, one track record. Financial advisors can access the same portfolio, the same performance history, and the same management team through whichever vehicle fits their client's situation — without compromise.

   This is also the first time an ETF issuer has brought a dual share class structure into live operation under a modern SEC exemptive order. We're already accepting new shareholders directly in TBFMX while we work through the platform and recordkeeper relationships to broaden distribution. More on that as we progress.

2. Why did you select TBIL as the first ETF to introduce a mutual fund for, following your exemptive relief from the SEC?

   TBIL was the obvious choice — and honestly, the only choice that made sense as a proof of concept.

   It holds 3-Month Treasury bills. Unitary fee structure. Completely transparent. There's no complexity in the strategy itself, which meant we could isolate and validate the structural complexity of running dual share classes without introducing variables we didn't need. If something wasn't working, we'd know exactly where to look.

   There's also an equity argument. The wrapper shouldn't dictate the investment — that's the premise we built this on TBIL is exactly the kind of strategy that should be accessible to every investor, regardless of how their account is set up. The fact that an advisor managing one client in a brokerage account and another in a retirement plan had to use different products to access the same strategy was always an unnecessary limitation. TBIL gave us the cleanest possible proof of concept, and it's a strategy that deserves to reach everyone.

3. More broadly, why is the Dual Share Class structure so significant?

   For decades, investors have had to make a choice that was never really about investing. ETF or mutual fund. Tax efficiency and liquidity, or platform familiarity and retirement account access. That's not a portfolio decision — it's a paperwork decision. And it's been treated as an immovable constraint for so long that most people stopped questioning it.

   What makes the dual share class structure significant — and durable — is that it didn't require new rules or novel interpretations to work. As our regulatory counsel Aisha Hunt put it: "It works within the existing ETF framework and the 1940 Act. That's what makes it durable, and what makes it a model other issuers can follow." The fix was always available inside the regulatory framework investors have relied on for more than 80 years. Someone just had to go build it.

   One portfolio. One governance framework. One performance track record. The mechanics underneath are genuinely complicated — but that's our problem, not the advisor's. If you're an advisor, what you experience is simplicity: choose the share class that fits your client's situation, and the investment takes care of itself. We were supported in getting there by The RBB Fund and U.S. Bank Global Fund Services, whose infrastructure was instrumental in moving this from regulatory approval to live operation — the first third-party multi-share class fund solution of its kind.

   That's what good infrastructure feels like. You don't think about it — it just works.

4. What are F/m's plans for 2026?

   The dual share class rollout is just getting started. TBFMX is already accepting new shareholders directly — and now we're doing the distribution work: getting onto platforms, working through recordkeeper relationships, making sure advisors can access this in the accounts where their clients actually need it. That's not a flip of a switch, it's a build, and we'll be sharing updates as we move through it.

   There's also a structural initiative that deserves attention. We have filed with the SEC for exemptive relief to tokenize TBIL shares on a permissioned blockchain. I want to be precise about what that means: This isn't a crypto play; it's an infrastructure play. The same TBIL ETF, the same regulated framework, the same investor protections — but with blockchain serving as a controlled recordkeeping layer that only approved, regulated intermediaries can access. The 1940 Act framework is already sufficient to make this work. We just have to build it the right way, which is exactly what we're doing.

   Both initiatives come back to the same belief: that good investment infrastructure should be invisible to the investor. You shouldn't have to think about the wrapper, the recordkeeping layer, or the distribution mechanics. You should just be able to access the strategy that's right for your client. That's what we're building toward in 2026.