VALLEY FORGE, PA (September 26, 2022)—Vanguard today announced that the $44.2 million Vanguard U.S. Liquidity Factor ETF will be liquidated in late November. The decision was made as part of Vanguard’s ongoing, comprehensive review of its global product lineup to ensure that each fund and ETF meets the evolving needs of clients.

“We continue to add new products that have investment merit and meet investors’ preferences, change advisors and mandates to improve investor outcomes, and eliminate funds that lack a distinct role in investors’ portfolios,” said Dan Reyes, head of Vanguard Portfolio Review Department. “Despite the ETF’s capable advisor and sound approach to factor investing, it has not gained scale since its 2018 debut.”

Vanguard continues to believe in the long-term investment case for factor investing. Under the right circumstances, factor products may help investors achieve their financial goals. The firm’s remaining U.S. factor products have a combined $3.4 billion in assets and continue to deliver value to a wide range of advisor and retail clients by employing a low-cost, rules-based, all-capitalization approach that provides investors with targeted factor exposure. The ETFs are actively managed by Vanguard Quantitative Equity Group, enabling daily portfolio assessment and potential rebalancing to mitigate factor drift. Taken together, this approach enables investors to tilt towards factors in a more efficient manner.

Shareholders are being notified and have the opportunity to sell their shares prior to the ETF delisting from Cboe BZX Exchange, Inc. at the close of business on or about November 22, 2022. On the liquidation date, the remaining ETF assets will be sold, and the proceeds distributed.

Vanguard Quantitative Equity Group’s team of experienced strategists, analysts, and portfolio managers oversees $46.6 billion across 30 mandates with the goal of generating alpha through sophisticated investment strategies. The team’s collaborative, integrated approach and risk-controlled, cost-effective investment process result in all team members working in concert toward the common goal of delivering excess returns for clients.

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About Vanguard

Founded in 1975, Vanguard is one of the world's leading investment management companies. The firm offers investments, advice, and retirement services to individual investors, institutions, and financial professionals. Vanguard operates under a unique, investor-owned structure where Vanguard fund shareholders own the funds, which in turn own Vanguard. As such, Vanguard adheres to a simple purpose: To take a stand for all investors, to treat them fairly, and to give them the best chance for investment success. For more information, visit vanguard.com.

All figures as of August 31, 2022, unless otherwise noted.

For more information about Vanguard funds, visit vanguard.com to obtain a prospectus or, if available, a summary prospectus. Investment objectives, risks, charges, expenses, and other important information about a fund are contained in the prospectus; read and consider it carefully before investing.

Vanguard ETF Shares are not redeemable with the issuing Fund other than in very large aggregations worth millions of dollars. Instead, investors must buy and sell Vanguard ETF Shares in the secondary market and hold those shares in a brokerage account. In doing so, the investor may incur brokerage commissions and may pay more than net asset value when buying and receive less than net asset value when selling.

All investing is subject to risk, including the possible loss of the money you invest.

The Factor Funds are subject to investment style risk, which is the chance that returns from the types of stocks in which a Factor Fund invests will trail returns from U.S. stock markets. The Factor Funds are also subject to manager risk, which is the chance that poor security selection will cause a Factor Fund to underperform its relevant benchmark or other funds with a similar investment objective, and sector risk, which is the chance that significant problems will affect a particular sector in which a Factor Fund invests, or that returns from that sector will trail returns from the overall stock market. 

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