Semper US Treasury MMF Closes
A filing for the Semper U.S. Treasury Money Market Fund says, "Effective January 15, 2019, the Fund will no longer accept new Share purchases." The fund's info has been removed from the Semper website, and we assume a liquidation is imminent. An earlier filing explained in a "Supplement dated December 17, 2018 to the Prospectus dated April 2, 2018," "Effective December 1, 2018, Semper Capital Management (the "Adviser") has voluntarily agreed to waive its entire advisory fee and reimburse all of the Fund's expenses (excluding all taxes, interest, portfolio transaction expenses, acquired fund fees and expenses, proxy expenses, and extraordinary expenses). The Adviser is not contractually obligated to waive such fees and/or reimburse such expenses and the voluntary agreement may be terminated at any time by the Adviser. This voluntary agreement does not replace or otherwise supersede the contractual expense limitation agreement currently in place for the Fund, which may only be raised or eliminated with the consent of the Board of Trustees." (For more, see our Jan. 31, 2018 News, "New Semper MMF.") In other news, Bond Buyer wrote the story, "Wisconsin seeks transparency with Clarity's VRDO bid platform." It tells us, "Wisconsin intends to use the Clarity Bidrate Alternative Trading System to competitively remarket $60 million of floating-rate paper, a decision cemented by recent lawsuits accusing banks and broker-dealers of widespread fraud in the variable-rate demand obligation market. The lawsuits highlight how 'rates are being established behind the curtain and with the Clarity platform everyone will see how the rate is determined based on orders from investors,' said Wisconsin's capital finance director, David Erdman.... Clarity, a division of Arbor Research & Trading LLC, launched its first issuer deal in November 2016 when Ohio sold $32.3 million of variable rate bonds."
