Westwood Holdings Group invests in venture with ETF leader Ben Fulton

Westwood Holdings Group (WHG) announced that Westwood has invested in a new venture with exchange-traded-fund industry leader Ben Fulton to expand Westwood’s existing ETF platform to include new, highly innovative strategies developed under a new stand-alone entity called WEBs Investments, which stands for “Westwood Engineered Beta.” WEBs is an investment adviser registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Westwood will invest in WEBs and provide distribution resources and administrative support to WEBs, leveraging its more than 40 years in the investment management industry. Westwood will have the option to acquire WEBs in the future if the entity achieves certain growth milestones. “In the second quarter of this year, we took the first steps towards achieving our vision of building out our ETF platform with the rollout of two Energy ETFs, both of which were well received by the market and our clients,” said Brian O. Casey, CEO”Our partnership with Ben and his team will greatly accelerate our path to meet the needs of investors who have expressed growing interest in ETF products. We believe that combining Ben’s ETF product development track record and vision with Chris Doran’s sales experience and relationships in the ETF space, along with the resources of our Westwood distribution team, will be a powerful combination to drive the growth of our partnership. Our goal will be to deliver new and innovative products in the ‘white spaces’ where we can secure first-mover advantage with less competition-always looking toward the next phase of growth to deliver value to our clients, our shareholders and our firm.”