PROSPECTUS

dated December 31, 2021

Motley Fool 100 Index ETF

(CBOE BZX: TMFC)

Motley Fool Small-Cap Growth ETF

(formerly known as MFAM Small-Cap Growth ETF)

(CBOE BZX: TMFS)

 

 

Each a series of The RBB Fund, Inc.
2000 Duke Street
Suite 275
Alexandria, VA 22314

 

 

The Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) has not approved or disapproved these securities or passed upon the adequacy of this prospectus. Any representation to the contrary is a criminal offense.

 

 

 

 

 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

 

 

Motley Fool 100 Index ETF

2

Summary Section

2

Motley Fool Small-Cap Growth ETF

9

Summary Section

9

Additional Information about the Funds

17

Management of the Funds

24

How to Buy and Sell Shares

25

Dividends, Distributions, and Taxes

27

Distribution

30

Additional Considerations

30

Financial Highlights

32

 

No securities dealer, sales representative, or any other person has been authorized to give any information or to make any representations, other than those contained in this Prospectus or in approved sales literature in connection with the offer contained herein, and if given or made, such other information or representations must not be relied upon as having been authorized by the Motley Fool 100 Index ETF or the Motley Fool Small-Cap Growth ETF (each a “Fund” and together, the “Funds”) or The RBB Fund, Inc. This prospectus does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any of the securities offered hereby in any jurisdiction or to any person to whom it is unlawful to make such offer.

 

 

SUMMARY SECTION

 

MOTLEY FOOL 100 INDEX ETF

 

1

 

 

Motley Fool 100 Index ETF

 

Summary Section

 

Investment Objective

 

The Motley Fool 100 Index ETF (the “Fool 100 Fund”) seeks investment results that correspond (before fees and expenses) generally to the total return performance of the Motley Fool 100 Index (the “Fool 100 Index” – for more on this, see the “Principal Investment Strategies” section).

 

Fees and Expenses

 

This table describes the fees and expenses that you may pay if you buy, hold, and sell shares of the Fool 100 Fund (“Shares”). This table and the Example below do not include the brokerage commissions that investors may pay on their purchases and sales of Fund Shares.

 

Annual Fund Operating Expenses (expenses that you pay each year as a percentage of the value of your investment):

 

Management Fees

0.50%

Distribution (12b-1) Fees

0.00%

Other Expenses

0.00%

Total Annual Fund Operating Expenses

0.50%

Motley Fool 100 Index ETF Shares

 

Example

 

This Example is intended to help you compare the cost of investing in the Fool 100 Fund with the cost of investing in other funds. The Example assumes that you invest $10,000 in the Fool 100 Fund for the time periods indicated and then redeem all of your Shares at the end of those periods. The Example also assumes that: (1) your investment has a 5% return each year, and (2) the Fool 100 Fund’s operating expenses remain the same. Although your actual costs may be higher or lower, based on these assumptions your costs would be:

 

1 Year

3 Years

5 Years

10 Years

$51

$160

$280

$628

 

Portfolio Turnover

 

The Fool 100 Fund pays transaction costs, such as commissions, when it buys and sells securities (or “turns over” its portfolio). A higher portfolio turnover rate may indicate higher transaction costs and may result in higher taxes when Fool 100 Fund Shares are held in a taxable account. These costs, which are not reflected in annual fund operating expenses or in the example, affect the Fool 100 Fund’s performance. For the fiscal year ended August 31, 2021, the Fool 100 Fund’s portfolio turnover rate was 23% of the average value of its portfolio.

 

Principal Investment Strategies

 

The Fool 100 Fund is an exchange-traded fund (“ETF”) and employs a “passive management” – or indexing – investment approach designed to track the total return performance, before fees and expenses, of the Fool 100 Index. Motley Fool Asset Management, LLC (the “Adviser” or “Motley Fool”) serves as the investment adviser to the Fool 100 Fund . The Fool 100 Index was developed by The Motley Fool, LLC (“TMF”), an affiliate of the Adviser.

 

The Motley Fool 100 Index

 

The Fool 100 Index was established by TMF in 2017 and is a proprietary, rules-based index designed to track the performance of the 100 largest, most liquid U.S. companies that have been recommended by TMF’s analysts and newsletters.

 

2

 

 

To be eligible for inclusion in the Fool 100 Index, a company must be among the 100 largest domestic firms by market capitalization in TMF’s “recommendation universe.” That recommendation universe includes all companies domiciled in the United States that are either active recommendations of a newsletter published by TMF or are among the 150 highest rated U.S. companies in TMF’s analyst opinion database.

 

Each of the 100 largest company’s share of the Fool 100 Index (or “weighting”) is set to equal the company’s share of all Index companies’ aggregate market value. The Fool 100 Index is reconstituted and rebalanced quarterly. From time to time, the Fool 100 Index may include more or less than 100 companies as a result of events such as acquisitions, spin-offs and other corporate actions.

 

The Fool 100 Index is calculated and administered by Solactive AG (the “Index Calculation Agent”), which is not affiliated with the Fool 100 Fund, the Adviser or TMF. Additional information regarding the Fool 100 Index, including its value, is available on the websites of the Fool 100 Index at www.fool100.com and the Index Calculation Agent, at www.solactive.com.

 

The Fool 100 Fund’s Investment Strategy

 

Under normal circumstances, at least 80% of the Fool 100 Fund’s total assets (exclusive of any collateral held from securities lending) will be invested in the component securities of the Fool 100 Index. The Adviser expects that, over time, if it has sufficient assets, the correlation between the Fool 100 Fund’s performance and that of the Fool 100 Index, before fees and expenses, will be 95% or better.

 

The Fool 100 Fund will generally use a “replication” strategy to achieve its investment objective, meaning it generally will invest in all of the component securities of the Fool 100 Index. However, the Fool 100 Fund may use a “representative sampling” strategy, meaning it may invest in a sample of the securities in the Fool 100 Index whose risk, return and other characteristics closely resemble the risk, return and other characteristics of the Fool 100 Index as a whole, when the Adviser believes it is in the best interests of the Fool 100 Fund (e.g., when replicating the Fool 100 Index involves practical difficulties or substantial costs, a Fool 100 Index constituent becomes temporarily illiquid, unavailable or less liquid, or as a result of legal restrictions or limitations that apply to the Fool 100 Fund but not to the Fool 100 Index).

 

The Fool 100 Fund generally may invest up to 20% of its total assets (exclusive of any collateral held from securities lending) in securities or other investments not included in the Fool 100 Index, but which the Adviser believes will help the Fool 100 Fund track the Fool 100 Index. For example, the Fool 100 Fund may invest in securities that are not components of the Fool 100 Index to reflect various corporate actions and other changes to the Fool 100 Index (such as reconstitutions, additions and deletions).

 

The Fool 100 Fund is non-diversified for the purposes of the Investment Company Act of 1940, as amended (“1940 Act”), which means that the Fool 100 Fund may invest in fewer securities at any one time than a diversified fund. To the extent the Fool 100 Index concentrates (i.e., holds more than 25% of its total assets) in the securities of a particular industry, the Fool 100 Fund will concentrate its investments to approximately the same extent as the Fool 100 Index. As of August 31, 2021, securities in the health care, information technology, communication services and consumer discretionary sectors represented a significant portion of the Fool 100 Index.

 

The Fool 100 Fund may also seek to increase its income by lending securities.

 

The Fool 100 Fund has elected to be, and intends to continue to qualify each year for treatment as a regulated investment company (“RIC”) under Subchapter M of Subtitle A, Chapter 1, of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended (the “Code”).

 

3

 

 

Principal Investment Risks

 

The value of the Fool 100 Fund’s investments may decrease, which will cause the value of the Fool 100 Fund’s Shares to decrease. As a result, you may lose money on your investment in the Fool 100 Fund, and there can be no assurance that the Fool 100 Fund will achieve its investment objective. The Fool 100 Fund’s principal risks are presented in alphabetical order to facilitate finding particular risks and comparing them with other funds. Each risk summarized below is considered a “principal risk” of investing in the Fool 100 Fund, regardless of the order in which it appears. Different risks may be more significant at different times depending on market conditions or other factors.

 

Cyber Security Risk. Cyber security risk is the risk of an unauthorized breach and access to the Fool 100 Fund’s assets, Fund or customer data (including private shareholder information), or proprietary information, or the risk of an incident occurring that causes the Fool 100 Fund, the Adviser, custodian, transfer agent, distributor and other service providers and financial intermediaries to suffer data breaches, data corruption or lose operational functionality or prevent the Fool 100 Fund’s investors from purchasing, redeeming or exchanging shares or receiving distributions. The Fool 100 Fund and the Adviser have limited ability to prevent or mitigate cyber security incidents affecting third-party service providers, and such third-party service providers may have limited indemnification obligations to the Fool 100 Fund or the Adviser. Successful cyber-attacks or other cyber-failures or events affecting the Fool 100 Fund or its service providers may adversely impact and cause financial losses to the Fool 100 Fund or its shareholders. Issuers of securities in which the Fool 100 Fund invests are also subject to cyber security risks, and the value of these securities could decline if the issuers experience cyber-attacks or other cyber-failures.

 

Equity Markets Risk. The equity securities held in the Fool 100 Fund’s portfolio may experience sudden, unpredictable drops in value or long periods of decline in value. This may occur because of factors that affect securities markets generally or factors affecting specific issuers, industries, or sectors in which the Fool 100 Fund invests. Common stocks are generally exposed to greater risk than other types of securities, such as preferred stocks and debt obligations, because common stockholders generally have inferior rights to receive payment from issuers.

 

ETF Risk. The Fool 100 Fund is an ETF, and, as a result of an ETF’s structure, it is exposed to the following risks:

 

 

Authorized Participants, Market Makers and Liquidity Providers Concentration Risk. The Fool 100 Fund has a limited number of financial institutions that are institutional investors and may act as authorized participants (“APs”). In addition, there may be a limited number of market makers and/or liquidity providers in the marketplace. To the extent either of the following events occur, Fool 100 Fund Shares may trade at a material discount to net asset value (“NAV”) and possibly face delisting: (i) APs exit the business or otherwise become unable to process creation and/or redemption orders and no other APs step forward to perform these services, or (ii) market makers and/or liquidity providers exit the business or significantly reduce their business activities and no other entities step forward to perform their functions. These events, among others, may lead to the Fool 100 Fund Shares trading at a premium or discount to NAV. Thus, you may pay more (or less) than the NAV when you buy Shares of the Fool 100 Fund in the secondary market, and you may receive less (or more) than NAV when you sell those Shares in the secondary market. A diminished market for an ETF’s shares substantially increases the risk that a shareholder may pay considerably more or receive significantly less than the underlying value of the ETF shares bought or sold.

 

 

Secondary Market Trading Risk. Although Shares are listed on a national securities exchange, the Cboe BZX Exchange, Inc. (the "Exchange"), and may be traded on U.S. exchanges other than the Exchange, there can be no assurance that an active or liquid trading market for them will develop or be maintained. In addition, trading in Shares on the Exchange may be halted. During periods of market stress, there may be times when the market price of Shares is more than the NAV intra-day (premium) or less than the NAV intra-day (discount). This risk is heightened in times of market volatility or periods of steep market declines.

 

 

Shares May Trade at Prices Other Than NAV Risk. As with all ETFs, Shares may be bought and sold in the secondary market at market prices. Although it is expected that the market price of Shares will approximate the Fool 100 Fund’s NAV, there may be times when the market price of Shares is more than the NAV intra-day (premium) or less than the NAV intra-day (discount). This risk is heightened in times of market volatility or periods of steep market declines.

 

4

 

 

Index Rankings and Methodology Risk. The Fool 100 Index is comprised of the 100 largest U.S. companies that are either active recommendations of TMF’s newsletter or are among the 150 highest rated U.S. companies in TMF’s analyst opinion database, and are weighted based on their market value relative to the total market value of other companies in the Fool 100 Index. Factors used by TMF’s analysts in their qualitative and quantitative analysis of companies included in the Fool 100 Index, and the weight placed on those factors, may not be predictive of a security’s value and, thus, have an adverse effect on the Fool 100 Fund. In addition, changes in TMF’s recommendations or rankings methodologies may have an adverse effect on the Fool 100 Fund. Factors that affect a security’s value can change over time, and these changes may not be reflected in the Fool 100 Index methodology. Moreover, the methodology and the calculation of the Fool 100 Index could be subject to errors. If the composition of the Fool 100 Index reflects such errors, the Fool 100 Fund’s portfolio can be expected to reflect the errors, too.

 

Large-Capitalization Investing Risk. Investments in securities of large-capitalization companies may be relatively mature compared to smaller companies and therefore subject to slower growth during times of economic expansion.

 

Market Risk. The trading prices of equity securities and other instruments fluctuate in response to a variety of factors including economic, political, financial, public health crises (such as epidemics or pandemics) or other disruptive events (whether real, expected or perceived) in the U.S. and global markets. The Fool 100 Fund’s NAV and market price may fluctuate significantly in response to these and other factors. As a result, an investor could lose money over short or long periods of time.

 

Non-Diversification Risk. The Fool 100 Fund is non-diversified, which means that it may invest a high percentage of its assets in a limited number of securities. Since the Fool 100 Fund is non-diversified, its NAV, market price and total returns may fluctuate or fall more than a diversified fund. Gains or losses on a single stock may have a greater impact on the Fool 100 Fund.

 

Passive Investment Risk. The Fool 100 Fund is not actively managed and the Adviser does not attempt to take defensive positions in any market conditions, including adverse markets. The Fool 100 Fund and its Adviser will not sell shares of an equity security due to current or projected underperformance of a security, industry, or sector, unless that security is removed from the Fool 100 Index or the selling of shares of that security is otherwise required upon a reconstitution of the Fool 100 Index as addressed in the Index methodology.

 

Portfolio Turnover Risk. In seeking to replicate the Fool 100 Index, which is adjusted and rebalanced quarterly, the Fool 100 Fund may incur relatively high portfolio turnover. High portfolio turnover may result in increased transaction costs and may lower Fund performance.

 

Sector Risk. To the extent the Fool 100 Fund invests more heavily in particular sectors of the economy, its performance will be especially sensitive to developments that significantly affect those sectors.

 

 

Communication Services Sector Risk. Companies in the communications sector may be affected by industry competition, substantial capital requirements, government regulation, cyclicality of revenues and earnings, obsolescence of communications products and services due to technological advancement, a potential decrease in the discretionary income of targeted individuals and changing consumer tastes and interests.

 

 

Consumer Discretionary Sector Risk. Companies in the consumer discretionary sector can be significantly affected by the performance of the overall economy, interest rates, competition, consumer confidence and spending, and changes in demographics and consumer tastes.

 

 

Health Care Sector Risk. Companies in the health care sector are subject to extensive government regulation and their profitability can be significantly affected by regulatory changes. Other risk factors include rising costs of medical products and services, pricing pressure and limited product lines, loss or impairment of intellectual property rights and litigation regarding product or service liability.

 

 

Information Technology Sector Risk. In addition to market or economic factors, companies in the information technology sector and companies that rely heavily on technology are particularly vulnerable to rapid changes in technology product cycles, rapid product obsolescence, government regulation and competition.

 

5

 

 

Securities Lending Risk. The Fool 100 Fund may lend portfolio securities to institutions, such as certain broker- dealers. The Fool 100 Fund may experience a loss or delay in the recovery of its securities if the borrowing institution breaches its agreement with the Fund.

 

Tracking Error Risk. As with all index funds, the performance of the Fool 100 Fund and its Index may differ from each other for a variety of reasons. For example, the Fool 100 Fund incurs operating expenses and portfolio transaction costs not incurred by the Fool 100 Index. In addition, the Fool 100 Fund may not be fully invested in the securities of the Fool 100 Index at all times or may hold securities not included in the Fool 100 Index.

 

Performance Information: The bar chart and performance table illustrate the risks and volatility of an investment in the Fool 100 Fund. The bar chart shows the changes in performance of the Fool 100 Fund from year to year. The table illustrates how the Fool 100 Fund’s average annual total returns for the one-year and since-inception periods compare with those of a broad measure of market performance and the Fool 100 Index. Past performance, both before and after taxes, does not necessarily indicate how the Fool 100 Fund will perform in the future. Updated performance information is available online at www.mfamfunds.com.

 

 

Best Quarter: 26.83% in the quarter ended June 30, 2020
Worst Quarter: -11.56% in the quarter ended March 31, 2020

 

The year-to-date total return for the nine months ended September 30, 2021 was 13.04%.

 

PERFORMANCE TABLE
(Average annual total returns for the periods ended December 31, 20
20)

 

Fool 100 Fund

1 Year

Since Inception,
January 29, 2018

Return Before Taxes

41.62%

22.01%

Return After Taxes on Distributions

41.48%

21.86%

Return After Taxes on Distributions and Sale of Fund Shares

24.74%

17.43%

Motley Fool 100 Index (reflects no deduction for fees, expenses or taxes)

42.34%

22.62%

S&P 500 Total Return Index (reflects no deduction for fees, expenses or taxes)

18.40%

12.03%

 

After-tax returns are calculated using the historical highest individual federal marginal income tax rates and do not reflect the impact of state and local taxes. Actual after-tax returns depend on an investor’s tax situation and may differ from those shown, and after-tax returns shown are not relevant to investors who hold their Fool 100 Fund shares through tax-deferred arrangements, such as 401(k) plans or individual retirement accounts.

 

6

 

 

Management

 

Investment Adviser

 

Motley Fool Asset Management, LLC serves as the investment adviser.

 

Portfolio Managers

 

Team Member

Primary Titles

Start Date with Fund

Bryan Hinmon, CFA®

Chief Investment Officer, Senior Portfolio Manager

Inception (January 29, 2018)

Anthony Arsta

Portfolio Manager

Inception (January 29, 2018)

 

Purchase and Sale of Fund Shares

 

Shares are listed on a national securities exchange, the Exchange, and investors can only buy and sell Shares through brokers or dealers at market prices, rather than NAV. Because Shares trade at market prices rather than NAV, Shares may trade at a price greater than NAV (premium) or less than NAV (discount). An investor may incur costs attributable to the difference between the highest price a buyer is willing to pay to purchase shares (bid) and the lowest price a seller is willing to accept for shares (ask) when buying or selling shares in the secondary market (the “bid-ask spread”). The median bid-ask spread for the Fool 100 Fund’s most recent fiscal year was 0.11%.

 

The Fool 100 Fund issues and redeems Shares at NAV only in large blocks known as “Creation Units,” which only APs (typically, broker-dealers) may purchase or redeem. Creation Units generally consist of 25,000 Shares, though this may change from time to time. The Fool 100 Fund generally issues and redeems Creation Units in exchange for a portfolio of securities closely approximating the holdings of the Fool 100 Fund (the “Deposit Securities”) and/or a designated amount of U.S. cash.

 

Tax Information

 

Fund distributions are generally taxable as ordinary income, qualified dividend income, or capital gains (or a combination), unless your investment is made through an individual retirement account (“IRA”) or other tax-advantaged account. Distributions on investments made through tax-deferred arrangements may be taxed later upon withdrawal of assets from those accounts.

 

Financial Intermediary Compensation

 

If you purchase Shares through a broker-dealer or other financial intermediary (such as a bank) (an “Intermediary”), the Fool 100 Fund’s investment adviser, or its affiliates may pay Intermediaries for certain activities related to the Fool 100 Fund, including participation in activities that are designed to make Intermediaries more knowledgeable about exchange traded products, including the Fool 100 Fund, or for other activities, such as marketing, educational training or other initiatives related to the sale or promotion of Shares. These payments may create a conflict of interest by influencing the Intermediary and your salesperson to recommend the Fool 100 Fund over another investment. Any such arrangements do not result in increased Fool 100 Fund expenses. Ask your salesperson or visit the Intermediary’s website for more information.

 

7

 

 

SUMMARY SECTION

 

MOTLEY FOOL SMALL-CAP GROWTH ETF

 

8

 

 

Motley Fool Small-Cap Growth ETF

 

Summary Section

 

Investment Objective

 

The investment objective of the Motley Fool Small-Cap Growth ETF (formerly known as MFAM Small-Cap Growth ETF) (the “Small-Cap Growth Fund”) is to achieve long-term capital appreciation.

 

Fees and Expenses

 

This table describes the fees and expenses that you may pay if you buy, hold, and sell shares of the Small-Cap Growth Fund (“Shares”). This table and the Example below do not include the brokerage commissions that investors may pay on their purchases and sales of Fund Shares.

 

Annual Fund Operating Expenses (expenses that you pay each year as a percentage of the value of your investment):

 

Management Fees

0.85%

Distribution (12b-1) Fees

0.00%

Other Expenses

0.00%

Total Annual Fund Operating Expenses

0.85%

MFAM Small-Cap Growth ETF Shares

 

Example

 

This Example is intended to help you compare the cost of investing in the Small-Cap Growth Fund with the cost of investing in other funds. The Example assumes that you invest $10,000 in the Small-Cap Growth Fund for the time periods indicated and then redeem all of your Shares at the end of those periods. The Example also assumes that: (1) your investment has a 5% return each year, and (2) the Small-Cap Growth Fund’s operating expenses remain the same. Although your actual costs may be higher or lower, based on these assumptions your costs would be:

 

1 Year

3 Years

5 Years

10 Years

$87

$271

$471

$1,049

 

Portfolio Turnover

 

The Small-Cap Growth Fund pays transaction costs, such as commissions, when it buys and sells securities (or “turns over” its portfolio). A higher portfolio turnover rate may indicate higher transaction costs and may result in higher taxes when Fund Shares are held in a taxable account. These costs, which are not reflected in annual fund operating expenses or in the example, affect the Fund’s performance. For the fiscal year ended August 31, 2021, the Small-Cap Growth Fund’s portfolio turnover rate was 21% of the average value of its portfolio.

 

Principal Investment Strategies

 

The Small-Cap Growth Fund is an actively-managed exchange-traded fund (“ETF”) and invests primarily in equity securities of small capitalization companies listed on a United States exchange and selected by Motley Fool Asset Management, LLC (the “Adviser” or “Motley Fool”), the Small-Cap Growth Fund’s investment adviser. The Small-Cap Growth Fund pursues its investment objective by using a quality growth style. The Small-Cap Growth Fund invests in a focused portfolio of the common stocks of high-quality companies organized in the United States that are engaged in a broad range of industries.

 

9

 

 

Under normal market conditions, the Small-Cap Growth Fund invests at least 80% of its net assets (plus the amount of any borrowings for investment purposes) in equity securities issued by small capitalization companies. For this purpose, the Adviser currently defines small capitalization companies as being within the same range of market capitalizations as the companies in the Russell 2000 Growth Index (the “Index”). The Index is used for the purpose of determining ranges of market capitalizations and not for targeting portfolio management. As of November 30, 2021, the median market capitalization of the Index was $1.269 billion and the largest stock was $16.993 billion. Under normal circumstances, the Small-Cap Growth Fund seeks to stay fully invested and does not attempt to time the market. The Small-Cap Growth Fund is non-diversified, which means that it may invest a significant portion of its assets in the securities of a single issuer or small number of issuers. In addition, at any given time, the Small-Cap Growth Fund may have a significant portion of its net assets invested in securities of issuers within a particular sector, such as the information technology, health care, industrial and consumer discretionary sectors.

 

In identifying investments for the Small-Cap Growth Fund, the Adviser looks for securities of companies that have high-quality businesses with strong market positions, manageable leverage, and the potential for robust streams of free cash flow. In managing the Small-Cap Growth Fund’s investment portfolio, the Adviser regularly reviews and adjusts the Small-Cap Growth Fund’s allocations to maintain a mix of investments that the Adviser believes offer the best overall potential for long-term growth of capital. The Small-Cap Growth Fund will sell securities in which it has invested based upon the Adviser’s analysis of fundamental investment criteria, including its assessment of the current value of a security relative to the security’s current market price, business fundamentals relating to the issuer, and developments affecting the issuer’s business prospects and risks.

 

The Small-Cap Growth Fund prefers to invest in high-quality businesses when possible. To identify these high-quality businesses, the Adviser engages in research to evaluate each company under consideration using four criteria described in more detail below: (i) management, culture, and incentives; (ii) the economics of the business; (iii) competitive advantage; and (iv) trajectory. The Adviser’s approach prizes a long-term mindset and a balance of qualitative and quantitative factors.

 

Management, Culture, and Incentives.

 

The Adviser believes that management is a key element to long-term success at most businesses. Among the factors the Adviser considers are: manager and board of director fit, the clarity of vision and strategies, main-line culture and turnover, ownership in the business, the sensibility of incentives, capital allocation choices and results, external transparency and candor, and overall treatment of stakeholders.

 

Economics of the Business.

 

The Adviser believes that the economic performance of a business is a signal for quality. The Adviser’s process looks at the company’s long-term return on capital, the scalability of its business model, relative and absolute margins, business and product cyclicality, and other key performance indicators to gain insight into its potential for future performance.

 

Competitive Advantage.

 

The Adviser seeks companies that offer certain characteristics that allow them to generate and sustain outsized returns on capital on an absolute basis as well as in comparison to their peers. Competitive advantages may include pricing power, geographic barriers to entry, network effects, regulatory barriers to entry and superior brands, among others. The Adviser also assesses the strength of the supporting capabilities each company possesses that reinforce these advantages to result in unique positioning.

 

Trajectory

 

Companies often display superior economics over the short term due to favorable product cycles, customer preference, temporary or tactical advantages or other reasons. As the Adviser’s desire is to own companies in the Small-Cap Growth Fund that can be kept in the portfolio for many years, a core part of the Adviser’s process is to consider what the company might look like over a period of ten or more years. The Adviser considers whether the company seems likely to grow, to increase profitability through additional products or other offerings, and if it has optionality and the financial capacity that may make it a larger, stronger business in the future than it might be today.

 

10

 

 

The Small-Cap Growth Fund’s investment portfolio is focused, generally composed of between 30 and 40 investment positions.

 

While investing in a particular sector is not a principal investment strategy of the Small-Cap Growth Fund, its portfolio may be significantly invested in a sector as a result of the portfolio management decisions made pursuant to its principal investment strategy. While the Small-Cap Growth Fund does not place any restrictions on its level of sector concentration, it will limit its investments in industries within any particular sector to less than 25% of the Fund’s total assets. As of August 31, 2021, the Small-Cap Growth Fund is significantly invested in the health care, industrials and information technology sectors, which means it will be more affected by the performance of such sectors than a fund that is not so significantly invested. The Small-Cap Growth Fund may not invest more than 15% of its net assets in illiquid securities.

 

The Small-Cap Growth Fund may also seek to increase its income by lending securities.

 

The Small-Cap Growth Fund has elected to be, and intends to continue to qualify each year for treatment as a regulated investment company (“RIC”) under Subchapter M of Subtitle A, Chapter 1, of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended (the “Code”).

 

Principal Investment Risks

 

The value of the Small-Cap Growth Fund’s investments may decrease, which will cause the value of the Small-Cap Growth Fund’s Shares to decrease. As a result, you may lose money on your investment in the Small-Cap Growth Fund, and there can be no assurance that the Small-Cap Growth Fund will achieve its investment objective. The Small-Cap Growth Fund’s principal risks are presented in alphabetical order to facilitate finding particular risks and comparing them with other funds. Each risk summarized below is considered a “principal risk” of investing in the Small-Cap Growth Fund, regardless of the order in which it appears. Different risks may be more significant at different times depending on market conditions or other factors.

 

Cyber Security Risk. Cyber security risk is the risk of an unauthorized breach and access to the Small-Cap Growth Fund’s assets, Fund or customer data (including private shareholder information), or proprietary information, or the risk of an incident occurring that causes the Small-Cap Growth Fund, the Adviser, custodian, transfer agent, distributor and other service providers and financial intermediaries to suffer data breaches, data corruption or lose operational functionality or prevent the Small-Cap Growth Fund’s investors from purchasing, redeeming or exchanging shares or receiving distributions. The Small-Cap Growth Fund and the Adviser have limited ability to prevent or mitigate cyber security incidents affecting third-party service providers, and such third-party service providers may have limited indemnification obligations to the Small-Cap Growth Fund or the Adviser. Successful cyber-attacks or other cyber-failures or events affecting the Small-Cap Growth Fund or its service providers may adversely impact and cause financial losses to the Small-Cap Growth Fund or its shareholders. Issuers of securities in which the Small-Cap Growth Fund invests are also subject to cyber security risks, and the value of these securities could decline if the issuers experience cyber-attacks or other cyber-failures.

 

Equity Market Risk. The equity securities held in the Small-Cap Growth Fund’s portfolio may experience sudden, unpredictable drops in value or long periods of decline in value. This may occur because of factors that affect securities markets generally or factors affecting specific issuers, industries, or sectors in which the Small-Cap Growth Fund invests. Common stocks are generally exposed to greater risk than other types of securities, such as preferred stocks and debt obligations, because common stockholders generally have inferior rights to receive payment from issuers.

 

11

 

 

ETF Risk. The Small-Cap Growth Fund is an ETF, and, as a result of an ETF’s structure, it is exposed to the following risks:

 

 

Authorized Participants, Market Makers and Liquidity Providers Concentration Risk. The Small-Cap Growth Fund has a limited number of financial institutions that are institutional investors and may act as authorized participants (“APs”). In addition, there may be a limited number of market makers and/or liquidity providers in the marketplace. To the extent either of the following events occur, Small-Cap Growth Fund Shares may trade at a material discount to net asset value (“NAV”) and possibly face delisting: (i) APs exit the business or otherwise become unable to process creation and/or redemption orders and no other APs step forward to perform these services, or (ii) market makers and/or liquidity providers exit the business or significantly reduce their business activities and no other entities step forward to perform their functions. These events, among others, may lead to the Small-Cap Growth Fund Shares trading at a premium or discount to NAV. Thus, you may pay more (or less) than the NAV when you buy Shares of the Small-Cap Growth Fund in the secondary market, and you may receive less (or more) than NAV when you sell those Shares in the secondary market. A diminished market for an ETF’s shares substantially increases the risk that a shareholder may pay considerably more or receive significantly less than the underlying value of the ETF shares bought or sold.

 

 

Secondary Market Trading Risk. Although Shares are listed on a national securities exchange, the Cboe BZX Exchange, Inc. (the "Exchange"), and may be traded on U.S. exchanges other than the Exchange, there can be no assurance that an active or liquid trading market for them will develop or be maintained. In addition, trading in Shares on the Exchange may be halted. During periods of market stress, there may be times when the market price of Shares is more than the NAV intra-day (premium) or less than the NAV intra-day (discount). This risk is heightened in times of market volatility or periods of steep market declines.

 

 

Shares May Trade at Prices Other Than NAV Risk. As with all ETFs, Shares may be bought and sold in the secondary market at market prices. Although it is expected that the market price of Shares will approximate the Small-Cap Growth Fund’s NAV, there may be times when the market price of Shares is more than the NAV intra-day (premium) or less than the NAV intra-day (discount). This risk is heightened in times of market volatility or periods of steep market declines.

 

Investment Style Risk. The Small-Cap Growth Fund pursues a quality growth style of investing. Quality growth style investing focuses on companies that appear attractive in light of factors such as the quality of management, sustainability of competitive advantage, or growth potential of cash flow. If the Adviser’s assessment of a company’s quality or intrinsic value or its prospects for exceeding earnings expectations or market conditions is inaccurate, the Small-Cap Growth Fund could suffer losses or produce poor performance relative to other funds. In addition, the stocks of quality companies can continue to be undervalued by the market for long periods of time. As a consequence of its investing style the Small-Cap Growth Fund may underperform the market and its peers over short timeframes.

 

Management Risk. The Small-Cap Growth Fund is subject to management risk as an actively-managed investment portfolio. The Adviser’s investment approach may fail to produce the intended results.

 

Market Risk. The trading prices of equity securities and other instruments fluctuate in response to a variety of factors. The Small-Cap Growth Fund’s NAV and market price may fluctuate significantly in response to these and other factors including economic, political, financial, public health crises (such as epidemics or pandemics) or other disruptive events (whether real, expected or perceived) in the U.S. and global markets. As a result, an investor could lose money over short or long periods of time.

 

Non-Diversification Risk. The Small-Cap Growth Fund is non-diversified, which means that it may invest a high percentage of its assets in a limited number of securities. Since the Small-Cap Growth Fund is non-diversified, its NAV, market price and total returns may fluctuate or fall more than a diversified fund. Gains or losses on a single stock may have a greater impact on the Small-Cap Growth Fund.

 

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Sector Risk. To the extent the Small-Cap Growth Fund invests more heavily in particular sectors of the economy, its performance will be especially sensitive to developments that significantly affect those sectors.

 

 

Health Care Sector Risk. Companies in the health care sector are subject to extensive government regulation and their profitability can be significantly affected by regulatory changes. Other risk factors include rising costs of medical products and services, pricing pressure and limited product lines, loss or impairment of intellectual property rights and litigation regarding product or service liability.

 

 

Industrial Sector Risk. Companies in the industrials sector could be affected by, among other things, government regulation, world events and economic conditions, insurance costs, and labor relations issues.

 

 

Information Technology Sector Risk. In addition to market or economic factors, companies in the information technology sector and companies that rely heavily on technology are particularly vulnerable to rapid changes in technology product cycles, rapid product obsolescence, government regulation and competition.

 

Securities Lending Risk. The Small-Cap Growth Fund may lend portfolio securities to institutions, such as certain broker-dealers. The Small-Cap Growth Fund may experience a loss or delay in the recovery of its securities if the borrowing institution breaches its agreement with the Fund.

 

Small Cap Companies Risk. Investments in securities of small-capitalization companies may be more vulnerable to adverse issuer, market, political, or economic developments than securities of larger-capitalization companies. The securities of small-capitalization companies generally trade in lower volumes and are subject to greater and more unpredictable price changes than larger capitalization stocks or the stock market as a whole. Some small capitalization companies have limited product lines, markets, and financial and managerial resources and tend to concentrate on fewer geographical markets relative to larger capitalization companies. There is typically less publicly available information concerning smaller-capitalization companies than for larger, more established companies. Small-capitalization companies also may be particularly sensitive to changes in interest rates, government regulation, borrowing costs and earnings.

 

Performance Information:

 

The bar chart and performance table illustrate the risks and volatility of an investment in the Small-Cap Growth Fund. The bar chart shows the changes in performance of the Small-Cap Growth Fund from year to year. The table illustrates how the Small-Cap Growth Fund’s average annual total returns for the one-year and since-inception periods compare with those of a broad measure of market performance. Past performance, both before and after taxes, does not necessarily indicate how the Small-Cap Growth Fund will perform in the future. Updated performance information is available online at www.mfamfunds.com.

 

 

Best Quarter: 36.00% in the quarter ended June 30, 2020
Worst Quarter: -17.69% in the quarter ended March 31, 2020

 

The year-to-date total return for the nine months ended September 30, 2021 was 1.83%.

 

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PERFORMANCE TABLE
(Average annual total returns for the periods ended December 31, 2020)

 

Small-Cap Growth Fund

1 Year

Since Inception,
October 29, 2018

Return Before Taxes

57.90%

39.34%

Return After Taxes on Distributions

55.87%

38.19%

Return After Taxes on Distributions and Sale of Fund Shares

35.66%

31.02%

Russell 2000 Growth Total Return Index (reflects no deduction for fees, expenses or taxes)

34.63%

24.15%

 

After-tax returns are calculated using the historical highest individual federal marginal income tax rates and do not reflect the impact of state and local taxes. Actual after-tax returns depend on an investor’s tax situation and may differ from those shown, and after-tax returns shown are not relevant to investors who hold their Small-Cap Growth Fund shares through tax-deferred arrangements, such as 401(k) plans or individual retirement accounts.

 

Management

 

Investment Adviser

 

Motley Fool Asset Management, LLC serves as the investment adviser.

 

Portfolio Managers

 

Team Member

Primary Titles

Start Date with Fund

Bryan C. Hinmon, CFA®

Chief Investment Officer, Senior Portfolio Manager

Inception (October 29, 2018)

Nathan G. Weisshaar, CFA®

Portfolio Manager

Inception (October 29, 2018)

 

Purchase and Sale of Fund Shares

 

Shares are listed on a national securities exchange, the Exchange, and investors can only buy and sell Shares through brokers or dealers at market prices, rather than NAV. Because Shares trade at market prices rather than NAV, Shares may trade at a price greater than NAV (premium) or less than NAV (discount). An investor may incur costs attributable to the difference between the highest price a buyer is willing to pay to purchase shares (bid) and the lowest price a seller is willing to accept for shares (ask) when buying or selling shares in the secondary market (the “bid-ask spread”). The median bid-ask spread for the Small-Cap Growth Fund’s most recent fiscal year was 0.48%.

 

The Small-Cap Growth Fund issues and redeems Shares at NAV only in large blocks known as “Creation Units,” which only APs (typically, broker-dealers) may purchase or redeem. Creation Units generally consist of 25,000 Shares, though this may change from time to time. The Small-Cap Growth Fund generally issues and redeems Creation Units in exchange for a portfolio of securities closely approximating the holdings of the Small-Cap Growth Fund (the “Deposit Securities”) and/or a designated amount of U.S. cash.

 

Tax Information

 

Fund distributions are generally taxable as ordinary income, qualified dividend income, or capital gains (or a combination), unless your investment is made through an individual retirement account (“IRA”) or other tax-advantaged account. Distributions on investments made through tax-deferred arrangements may be taxed later upon withdrawal of assets from those accounts.

 

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Financial Intermediary Compensation

 

If you purchase Shares through a broker-dealer or other financial intermediary (such as a bank) (an “Intermediary”), the Small-Cap Growth Fund’s investment adviser, or its affiliates may pay Intermediaries for certain activities related to the Small-Cap Growth Fund, including participation in activities that are designed to make Intermediaries more knowledgeable about exchange traded products, including the Small-Cap Growth Fund, or for other activities, such as marketing, educational training or other initiatives related to the sale or promotion of Shares. These payments may create a conflict of interest by influencing the Intermediary and your salesperson to recommend the Small-Cap Growth Fund over another investment. Any such arrangements do not result in increased Small-Cap Growth Fund expenses. Ask your salesperson or visit the Intermediary’s website for more information.

 

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PROSPECTUS

 

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Additional Information about the Funds

 

Investment Objective – Fool 100 Fund and Small-Cap Growth Fund

 

The Fool 100 Fund seeks investment results (before fees and expenses) that correspond generally to the total return performance of the Fool 100 Index. The Small-Cap Growth Fund seeks to achieve long-term capital appreciation. Each of the Fool 100 Fund and Small-Cap Growth Fund’s (each a “Fund” and together, the “Funds”) investment objective has been adopted as a non-fundamental investment policy and may be changed without shareholder approval upon 60 days’ written notice to shareholders.

 

Additional Investment Strategies – Fool 100 Fund

 

The Fool 100 Fund, using an “indexing” investment approach, seeks to track the investment results, before fees and expenses, of the Fool 100 Index. A number of factors may affect the Fool 100 Fund’s ability to achieve a high correlation with its Index, including Fool 100 Fund expenses, differences between the securities held in the Fool 100 Fund’s portfolio and those included in the Fool 100 Index, the timing or magnitude of changes to the composition of its Index, regulatory policies, and high portfolio turnover rate. There can be no guarantee that the Fool 100 Fund will achieve a high degree of correlation with the Fool 100 Index.

 

The Adviser may sell securities that are represented in the Fool 100 Index or purchase securities not yet represented in the Fool 100 Index if the Adviser believes such securities are appropriate to substitute for certain securities in the Fool 100 Fund’s Index. The Adviser may utilize various combinations of other available investment techniques in seeking to track the Fool 100 Index.

 

As a result of its investments, the Fool 100 Fund’s distributions for any taxable year may exceed its earnings and profits, as determined for U.S. federal income tax purposes. For a given taxable year, fund distributions, if any, that exceed earnings and profits may be treated as a return of capital to shareholders.

 

Additional Investment Strategies – Small-Cap Growth Fund

 

Under normal market conditions, the Small-Cap Growth Fund invests at least 80% of its net assets (plus the amount of any borrowings for investment purposes) in securities issued by small capitalization companies (the “80% Policy”). For this purpose, the Adviser currently defines small capitalization companies as being within the range of market capitalizations as the companies in the Russell 2000 Growth Index.

 

Additional Principal Risk Information

 

The value of a Fund’s investments may decrease, which will cause the value of the Fund’s Shares to decrease. As a result, you may lose money on your investment in a Fund, and there can be no assurance that the Fund will achieve its investment objective. An investment in a Fund is subject to one or more of the principal risks identified in the following table. The principal risks identified are discussed in more detail in the disclosure that immediately follows the table.

 

 

Fool 100 Fund

Small-Cap Growth Fund

Cyber Security Risk

Equity Markets Risk

ETF Risk

Index Rankings and Methodology Risk

 

Investment Style Risk

 

Large-Capitalization Investing Risk

 

Management Risk

 

Market Risk

Non-Diversification Risk

Passive Investment Risk

 

 

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Fool 100 Fund

Small-Cap Growth Fund

Portfolio Turnover Risk

 

Sector Risk

Securities Lending Risk

Small-Capitalization Investing Risk

 

Tracking Error Risk

 

 

Cyber Security Risk. With the increased use of technologies such as the internet to conduct business, each Fund is susceptible to operational, information security and related risks. In general, cyber incidents can result from deliberate attacks or unintentional events. Cyber-attacks include, but are not limited to, gaining unauthorized access to digital systems (e.g., through “hacking” or malicious software coding) for purposes of misappropriating assets or sensitive information, corrupting data, or causing operational disruption. Cyber-attacks may also be carried out in a manner that does not require gaining unauthorized access, such as causing denial-of-service attacks on websites (i.e., efforts to make network services unavailable to intended users). Cyber security failures or breaches by the Adviser and other service providers (including, but not limited to, the Funds’ accountant, custodian, transfer agent and administrator), and the issuers of securities in which the Funds invest, have the ability to cause disruptions and impact business operations, potentially resulting in financial losses, interference with a Fund’s ability to calculate its NAV, impediments to trading, the inability of Fund shareholders to transact business, violations of applicable privacy and other laws, regulatory fines, penalties, reputational damage, reimbursement or other compensation costs, or additional compliance costs. In addition, substantial costs may be incurred in order to prevent any cyber incidents in the future. While the Adviser has established business continuity plans in the event of, and risk management systems to prevent, such cyber-attacks, there are inherent limitations in such plans and systems including the possibility that certain risks have not been identified. Furthermore, a Fund cannot control the cyber security plans and systems put in place by service providers to the Fund and issuers in which the Fund invests. A Fund and its shareholders could be negatively impacted as a result.

 

Equity Markets Risk. The price of equity securities may rise or fall because of changes in the broad market or changes in a company’s financial condition, sometimes rapidly or unpredictably. These price movements may result from factors affecting individual companies, sectors or industries selected for a Fund or the securities market as a whole, such as changes in economic or political conditions. Equity securities are subject to “stock market risk” meaning that stock prices in general (or in particular, the types of securities in which a Fund invests) may decline over short or extended periods of time. When the value of a Fund’s securities goes down, your investment in the Fund decreases in value. Common stocks are generally exposed to greater risk that other types of securities, such as preferred stock and debt obligations, because common stockholders generally have inferior rights to receive payment from issuers. Common stocks are susceptible to general stock market fluctuations and to volatile increases and decreases in value as market confidence in and perceptions of their issuers change. These investor perceptions are based on various and unpredictable factors including: expectations regarding government, economic, monetary and fiscal policies; inflation and interest rates; economic expansion or contraction; and global or regional political, economic, and banking crises.

 

ETF Risk. Each Fund is an ETF, and, as a result of an ETF’s structure, each Fund is exposed to the following risks:

 

 

Authorized Participants, Market Makers and Liquidity Providers Concentration Risk. A Fund may have a limited number of financial institutions that may act as APs. In addition, there may be a limited number of market makers and/or liquidity providers in the marketplace. To the extent either of the following events occur, Shares may trade at a material discount to NAV and possibly face delisting: (i) APs exit the business or otherwise become unable to process creation and/or redemption orders and no other APs step forward to perform these services, or (ii) market makers and/or liquidity providers exit the business or significantly reduce their business activities and no other entities step forward to perform their functions. These events, among others, may lead to a Fund’s Shares trading at a premium or discount to NAV. Thus, you may pay more (or less) than the NAV when you buy Shares of a Fund in the secondary market, and you may receive less (or more) than NAV when you sell those Shares in the secondary market. A diminished market for an ETF’s shares substantially increases the risk that a shareholder may pay considerably more or receive significantly less than the underlying value of the ETF shares bought or sold.

 

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Secondary Market Trading Risk. Although each Fund’s Shares are listed for trading on the Exchange and may be listed or traded on U.S. and non-U.S. stock exchanges other than the Exchange, there can be no assurance that an active trading market for Shares will develop or be maintained. Trading in a Fund’s Shares may be halted due to market conditions or for reasons that, in the view of the Exchange, make trading in Shares inadvisable. In addition, trading in Shares on the Exchange is subject to trading halts caused by extraordinary market volatility pursuant to Exchange “circuit breaker” rules, which temporarily halt trading on the Exchange. Additional rules applicable to the Exchange may halt trading in Shares when extraordinary volatility causes sudden, significant swings in the market price of Shares. There can be no assurance that Shares will trade with any volume, or at all, on any stock exchange. In stressed market conditions, the liquidity of a Fund’s Shares may begin to mirror the liquidity of the Fund’s underlying holdings, which can be significantly less liquid than the Fund’s Shares. In addition, during periods of market stress, there may be times when the market price of Shares is more than the NAV intra-day (premium) or less than the NAV intra-day (discount). This risk is heightened in times of market volatility or periods of steep market declines.

 

 

Shares May Trade at Prices Other Than NAV Risk. As with all ETFs, Shares of each Fund may be bought and sold in the secondary market at market prices. Although it is expected that the market price of Shares will approximate a Fund’s NAV, there may be times when the market price of Shares is more than the NAV intra-day (premium) or less than the NAV intra-day (discount) due to supply and demand of Shares or during periods of market volatility. This risk is heightened in times of market volatility or periods of steep market declines. The market price of Shares during the trading day, like the price of any exchange-traded security, includes a “bid/ask” spread charged by the exchange specialist, market makers or other participants that trade Shares. In times of severe market disruption, the bid/ask spread can increase significantly. At those times, Shares are most likely to be traded at a discount to NAV, and the discount is likely to be greatest when the price of Shares is falling fastest, which may be the time that you most want to sell your Shares. The Adviser believes that, under normal market conditions, large market price discounts or premiums to NAV will not be sustained because of arbitrage opportunities.

 

Index Rankings and Methodology Risk. The Fool 100 Index is comprised of the 100 largest U.S. companies that are either active recommendations of a Motley Fool newsletter or are among the 150 highest rated U.S. companies in TMF’s analyst opinion database, and are weighted based on their market value relative to the total market value of other companies in the Fool 100 Index. Factors used by TMF’s analysts in their qualitative and quantitative analysis of companies included in the Fool 100 Index, and the weight placed on those factors, may not be predictive of a security’s value and, thus, have an adverse effect on the Fool 100 Fund. In addition, changes in TMF’s recommendations or rankings methodologies may have an adverse effect on the Fool 100 Fund. Factors that affect a security’s value can change over time, and these changes may not be reflected in the Fool 100 Index methodology. In addition, the following risks result from TMF’s business operations:

 

 

There are no assurances that TMF will continue to provide stock recommendations to the degree currently provided by it, or that it will continue to provide newsletter and/or other services at all. TMF may decrease the number of equity analysts that it employs, or the number of covered companies and/or industries.

 

 

Analysts may leave TMF or cease providing recommendations, in which case any securities covered by that analyst may no longer be included in the universe of stocks covered by TMF. In such case, those securities may be removed from the Fool 100 Index during the next rebalance of the Fool 100 Index, despite the fact that expectations regarding such security’s performance may be unchanged. Similarly, changes in analysts could result in changes to the composition of the Fool 100 Index and, thus, could result in increased portfolio turnover for the Fool 100 Fund.

 

 

TMF’s members who subscribe to its recommendation services and others who have access to that information will have advance knowledge of information that will be reflected in the Fool 100 Index. While TMF’s recommendations can change on any given day, the Fool 100 Index will only be rebalanced quarterly.

 

In addition to the risks inherent in TMF’s operations and the compilation of the Fool 100 Index, the methodology and the calculation of the Fool 100 Index could be subject to errors. If the composition of the Fool 100 Index reflects such errors, the Fool 100 Fund’s portfolio can be expected to reflect the errors, too.

 

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Investment Style Risk. The Small-Cap Growth Fund pursues a quality growth style of investing. Quality growth style investing focuses on companies that appear attractively priced in light of factors such as the quality of management, sustainability of competitive advantage, or growth potential of cash flow. If the Adviser’s assessment of a company’s quality or intrinsic value or its prospects for exceeding earnings expectations or market conditions is inaccurate, the Small-Cap Growth Fund could suffer losses or produce poor performance relative to other funds. In addition, the stocks of quality companies can continue to be undervalued by the market for long periods of time. As a consequence of its investing style the Small-Cap Growth Fund may underperform the market and its peers over short timeframes.

 

Large-Capitalization Investing Risk. The Fool 100 Fund may invest in the securities of large-capitalization companies. As a result, the Fool 100 Fund’s performance may be adversely affected if securities of large-capitalization companies underperform securities of smaller-capitalization companies or the market as a whole. The securities of large-capitalization companies may be relatively mature compared to smaller companies and therefore subject to slower growth during times of economic expansion.

 

Management Risk. The Small-Cap Growth Fund is subject to management risk as an actively-managed investment portfolio. The Adviser’s investment approach may fail to produce the intended results.

 

Market Risk. The trading prices of equity securities and other instruments fluctuate in response to a variety of factors including economic, political, financial, public health crises (such as epidemics or pandemics) or other disruptive events (whether real, expected or perceived) in the U.S. and global markets. A Fund’s NAV and market price is based upon the market’s perception of value and is not necessarily an objective measure of an investment’s value. There is no assurance that a Fund will realize its investment objective, and an investment in a Fund is not, by itself, a complete or balanced investment program. You could lose money on your investment in a Fund, or a Fund could underperform other investments.

 

Periods of unusually high financial market volatility and restrictive credit conditions, at times limited to a particular sector or geographic area, have occurred in the past and may be expected to recur in the future. Some countries, including the United States, have adopted or have signaled protectionist trade measures, relaxation of the financial industry regulations that followed the financial crisis, and/or reductions to corporate taxes. The scope of these policy changes is still developing, but the equity and debt markets may react strongly to expectations of change, which could increase volatility, particularly if a resulting policy runs counter to the market’s expectations. The outcome of such changes cannot be foreseen at the present time. In addition, geopolitical and other risks, including environmental and public health risks, may add to instability in the world economy and markets generally. As a result of increasingly interconnected global economies and financial markets, the value and liquidity of a Fund’s investments may be negatively affected by events impacting a country or region, regardless of whether the Fund invests in issuers located in or with significant exposure to such country or region.

 

The continuing spread of an infectious respiratory illness caused by a novel strain of coronavirus (known as COVID-19) has caused volatility, severe market dislocations and liquidity constraints in many markets and may adversely affect the Funds’ investments and operations. The outbreak was first detected in December 2019 and subsequently spread globally. The transmission of COVID-19 and efforts to contain its spread have resulted in international and domestic travel restrictions and disruptions, closed international borders, enhanced health screenings at ports of entry and elsewhere, disruption of and delays in healthcare service preparation and delivery, quarantines, event and service cancellations or interruptions, disruptions to business operations (including staff reductions), supply chains and consumer activity, as well as general concern and uncertainty that has negatively affected the economic environment. These disruptions have led to instability in the marketplace, including stock and credit market losses and overall volatility. The impact of COVID-19, and other infectious illness outbreaks, epidemics or pandemics that may arise in the future, could adversely affect the economies of many nations or the entire global economy, the financial performance of individual issuers, borrowers and sectors and the health of the markets generally in potentially significant and unforeseen ways. Health crises caused by the recent outbreak may heighten other pre-existing political, social and economic risks in a country or region. In the event of a pandemic or an outbreak, there can be no assurance that the Funds and their service providers will be able to maintain normal business operations for an extended period of time or will not lose the services of key personnel on a temporary or long-term basis due to illness or other reasons. Although vaccines for COVID-19 are becoming more widely available, the full impacts of a pandemic or disease outbreaks are unknown and the pace of recovery may vary from market to market, resulting in a high degree of uncertainty for potentially extended periods of time.

 

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Non-Diversification Risk. The Funds are each non-diversified, which means that they may invest a high percentage of their assets in a limited number of securities. Since the Funds are non-diversified, their NAV, market price and total returns may fluctuate or fall more than a diversified fund. Gains or losses on a single stock may have a greater impact on the Funds.

 

Passive Investment Risk. The Fool 100 Fund is not actively managed and the Adviser will not sell shares of an equity security due to current or projected underperformance of a security, industry, or sector, unless that security is removed from the Fool 100 Index or the selling of shares of that security is otherwise required upon a reconstitution of the Fool 100 Index as addressed in the Fool 100 Index methodology. The Fool 100 Fund invests in securities included in, or representative of securities included in, the Fool 100 Index, regardless of their investment merits. The Fool 100 Fund does not take defensive positions under any market conditions, including conditions that are adverse to the performance of the Fool 100 Fund.

 

Portfolio Turnover Risk. The Fool 100 Fund may trade all or a significant portion of the securities in its portfolio in connection with each rebalance and reconstitution of its Index. A high portfolio turnover rate increases transaction costs, which may increase the Fool 100 Fund’s expenses. Frequent trading may also cause adverse tax consequences for investors in the Fool 100 Fund due to an increase in short-term capital gains

 

Sector Risk. To the extent a Fund invests more heavily in particular sectors of the economy, its performance will be especially sensitive to developments that significantly affect those sectors. The Fool 100 Fund and the Small-Cap Growth Fund may concentrate their portfolio investments in the following sectors, among others:

 

 

Communication Services Sector Risk. (only applies to the Fool 100 Fund) The communication services sector consists of both companies in the telecommunication services industry as well as those in the media and entertainment industry. Examples of companies in the telecommunication services industry group include providers of fiber-optic, fixed-line, cellular and wireless telecommunications networks. Companies in the media and entertainment industry group encompass a variety of services and products including television broadcasting, gaming products, social media, networking platforms, online classifieds, online review websites and Internet search engines. The communication services sector of a country’s economy is often subject to extensive government regulation. The costs of complying with governmental regulations, delays or failure to receive required regulatory approvals, or the enactment of new regulatory requirements may negatively affect the business of communications companies. Companies in the communication services sector may encounter distressed cash flows due to the need to commit substantial capital to meet increasing competition, particularly in developing new products and services using new technology. Communication services companies are particularly vulnerable to the potential obsolescence of products and services due to technological advancement and the innovation of competitors. While all companies may be susceptible to network security breaches, certain companies in the communication services sector may be particular targets of hacking and potential theft of proprietary or consumer information or disruptions in service, which could have a material adverse effect on their businesses.

 

 

Consumer Discretionary Sector Risk. (only applies to the Fool 100 Fund) The consumer discretionary sector (which includes companies in industries such as consumer and household durables, consumer services, media, retailing, and automobiles) can be significantly affected by the performance of the overall economy, interest rates, competition, consumer confidence and spending, and changes in demographics and consumer tastes. Success depends heavily on disposable household income and consumer spending. Competition in this sector is exacerbated by the shift toward online shopping, which may affect a company’s margins and its stock price. Faster-than-expected interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve and rising oil prices could dampen the ability of consumers to spend on discretionary items, which may adversely affect companies in this sector. There are also indications that consumers, especially millennials, have different spending habits and some companies in this sector might have difficulty adjusting to these, and other, consumer trends.

 

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Health Care Sector Risk. Companies in the health care sector are subject to extensive government regulation and their profitability can be significantly affected by restrictions on government reimbursement for medical expenses, rising costs of medical products and services, pricing pressure (including price discounting), limited product lines and an increased emphasis on the delivery of healthcare through outpatient services. Companies in the health care sector are heavily dependent on obtaining and defending patents, which may be time consuming and costly, and the expiration of patents may also adversely affect the profitability of these companies. Health care companies are also subject to extensive litigation based on product liability and similar claims. In addition, their products can become obsolete due to industry innovation, changes in technologies or other market developments. Many new products in the health care sector require significant research and development and may be subject to regulatory approvals, all of which may be time consuming and costly with no guarantee that any product will come to market.

 

 

Industrials Sector Risk. (only applies to the Fool 100 Fund) The industrials sector includes companies engaged in the manufacture and distribution of capital goods, such as those used in defense, construction and engineering, companies that manufacture and distribute electrical equipment and industrial machinery and those that provide commercial and transportation services and supplies. Companies in the industrials sector may be adversely affected by changes in government regulation, world events and economic conditions. In addition, companies in the industrials sector may be adversely affected by environmental damages, product liability claims, labor disputes and exchange rates.

 

 

Information Technology Sector Risk. Market or economic factors impacting information technology companies and companies that rely heavily on technological advances could have a significant effect on the value of the Fund’s investments. The value of stocks of information technology companies and companies that rely heavily on technology is particularly vulnerable to rapid changes in technology product cycles, rapid product obsolescence, government regulation and competition, both domestically and internationally, including competition from foreign competitors with lower production costs. Stocks of information technology companies and companies that rely heavily on technology, especially those of smaller, less-seasoned companies, tend to be more volatile than the overall market. Information technology companies are heavily dependent on patent and intellectual property rights, the loss or impairment of which may adversely affect profitability. Additionally, companies in the technology sector may face dramatic and often unpredictable changes in growth rates and competition for the services of qualified personnel.

 

Securities Lending Risk. Each Fund may seek to increase its income by lending portfolio securities to institutions, such as certain broker-dealers. Portfolio securities loans are secured continuously by collateral maintained on a current basis at an amount at least equal to the market value of the securities loaned. The value of the securities loaned by a Fund will not exceed 33 1/3% of the value of the Fund’s total assets. A Fund may experience a loss or delay in the recovery of its securities if the borrowing institution breaches its agreement with the Fund. Lending a Fund’s portfolio securities involves the risk of delay in receiving additional collateral if the value of the securities goes up while they are on loan. A Fund may lose money from securities lending if, for example, it is delayed in or prevented from selling the collateral or from recovering the securities loaned or if it incurs losses on the reinvestment of cash collateral.

 

Small-Capitalization Investing Risk. The Small-Cap Growth Fund invests in securities of small-capitalization companies. The securities of small-capitalization companies may be more vulnerable to adverse issuer, market, political, or economic developments than securities of larger-capitalization companies. The securities of small-capitalization companies generally trade in lower volumes and are subject to greater and more unpredictable price changes than larger capitalization stocks or the stock market as a whole. Some small capitalization companies have limited product lines, markets, and financial and managerial resources and tend to concentrate on fewer geographical markets relative to larger capitalization companies. There is typically less publicly available information concerning smaller-capitalization companies than for larger, more established companies. Small-capitalization companies also may be particularly sensitive to changes in interest rates, government regulation, borrowing costs and earnings.

 

Tracking Error Risk. As with all index funds, the performance of the Fool 100 Fund and its Index may differ from each other for a variety of reasons. For example, the Fool 100 Fund incurs operating expenses and portfolio transaction costs not incurred by the Fool 100 Index. In addition, the Fool 100 Fund may not be fully invested in the securities of the Fool 100 Index at all times or may hold securities not included in the Fool 100 Index.

 

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Additional Information About Non-Principal Risks of the Funds. This section provides additional information regarding certain non-principal risks of investing in the Funds. The risk listed below could have a negative impact on a Fund’s performance and trading prices.

 

 

Costs of Buying or Selling Shares Risk. Investors buying or selling Shares of each Fund in the secondary market will pay brokerage commissions or other charges imposed by brokers, as determined by that broker. Brokerage commissions are often a fixed amount and may be a significant proportional cost for investors seeking to buy or sell relatively small amounts of a Fund’s Shares. In addition, secondary market investors will also incur the cost of the difference between the price at which an investor is willing to buy Shares (the “bid” price) and the price at which an investor is willing to sell Shares (the “ask” price). This difference in bid and ask prices is often referred to as the “spread” or “bid/ask spread.” The bid/ask spread varies over time for Shares based on trading volume and market liquidity, and is generally lower if Shares have more trading volume and market liquidity and higher if Shares have little trading volume and market liquidity. Further, a relatively small investor base in a Fund, asset swings in a Fund and/or increased market volatility may cause increased bid/ask spreads. Due to the costs of buying or selling Shares, including bid/ask spreads, frequent trading of Shares may significantly reduce investment results and an investment in Shares may not be advisable for investors who anticipate regularly making small investments.

 

 

Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) Risk. While the Small-Cap Growth Fund has no limit on the amount of its assets that can be invested in IPOs, seeking investments in IPOs is not part of the Fund’s principal investment strategy. By definition, securities issued in IPOs have not traded publicly until the time of their offerings. Special risks associated with IPOs may include, among others, the fact that there may be only a limited number of shares available for trading. The market for those securities may be unseasoned. The issuer may have a limited operating history. These factors may contribute to price volatility. The limited number of shares available for trading in some IPOs may also make it more difficult for the Small-Cap Growth Fund to buy or sell significant amounts of shares without an unfavorable impact on prevailing prices. In addition, some companies initially offering their shares publicly are involved in relatively new industries or lines of business, which may not be widely understood by investors. Some of the companies involved in new industries may be regarded as developmental stage companies, without revenues or operating income, or the near-term prospects of them. Many IPOs are by small- or micro-cap companies that are undercapitalized.

 

 

Legal and Regulatory Change Risk. The regulatory environment for investment companies is evolving, and changes in regulation may adversely affect the value of a Fund’s investments and its ability to pursue its trading strategy. In addition, the securities markets are subject to comprehensive statutes and regulations. The SEC and other regulators and self-regulatory organizations and exchanges are authorized to take extraordinary actions in the event of market emergencies. The effect of any future regulatory change on a Fund could be substantial and adverse.

 

In October 2020, the SEC adopted certain regulatory changes and took other actions related to the ability of an investment company to invest in another investment company. These regulatory changes may adversely impact the Funds' investment strategies and operations.

 

 

Regulated Investment Company (“RIC”) Compliance Risk. Each Fund has elected to be, and intends to continue to qualify each year for treatment as, a RIC under Subchapter M of Subtitle A, Chapter 1, of the Code. To continue to qualify for federal income tax treatment as a RIC, each Fund must meet certain source-of-income, asset diversification and annual distribution requirements. If for any taxable year a Fund fails to qualify for the special federal income tax treatment afforded to RICs, all of that Fund’s taxable income will be subject to federal income tax at regular corporate rates (without any deduction for distributions to its shareholders) and its income available for distribution will be reduced. Under certain circumstances, a Fund could cure a failure to qualify as a RIC, but in order to do so, the Fund could incur significant Fund-level taxes and could be forced to dispose of certain assets.

 

Disclosure of Portfolio Holdings

 

Each Fund’s entire portfolio holdings are publicly disseminated each day the Fund is open for business through the Funds’ website located at www.mfamfunds.com and may be made available through financial reporting and news services or any other medium, including publicly available internet web sites. Additional information regarding the Funds’ policies and procedures with respect to the disclosure of the Funds’ portfolio securities is available in the Funds’ Statement of Additional Information (“SAI”).

 

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Management of the Funds

 

The Board of The RBB Fund, Inc. (the “Company”), of which each Fund is a series, is responsible for supervising the operations and affairs of the Funds. The Adviser is responsible for the daily management and administration of each Fund’s operations.

 

Investment Adviser

 

The Adviser is a wholly owned subsidiary of Motley Fool Investment Management, LLC, a subsidiary of The Motley Fool Holdings Inc. (“TMF Holdings”), a multimedia financial-services holding company that also owns TMF, which publishes investment information and analysis across a wide range of media, including investment-newsletter services, websites, and books. TMF Holdings is controlled by David Gardner and Tom Gardner. The Adviser is located at 2000 Duke Street, Suite 275, Alexandria, Virginia 22314.

 

The Adviser is a separate legal entity and all discretionary asset management services for the Funds are made independently by portfolio managers at the Adviser. Neither Messrs. David Gardner or Tom Gardner, nor any TMF analyst is involved in the investment decision-making or daily operations of the Adviser.

 

Subject to the overall supervision of the Board, the Adviser manages the overall investment operations of the Funds in accordance with each Fund’s investment objective and policies and formulates a continuing investment strategy for each Fund pursuant to the terms of investment advisory agreements between the Company and the Adviser (each, an “Advisory Agreement” and together, the “Advisory Agreements”). Under the terms of its Advisory Agreement, the Fool 100 Fund pays the Adviser a unitary management fee that is computed and paid monthly at an annual rate of 0.50% of the Fool 100 Fund’s average daily net assets during the month. Under the terms of its Advisory Agreement, the Small-Cap Growth Fund pays a unitary management fee that is computed and paid monthly at an annual rate of 0.85% of the Small-Cap Growth Fund’s average daily net assets during the month. From the unitary management fees, the Adviser pays most of the expenses of the Funds, including the cost of transfer agency, custody, fund administration, legal, audit and other services. However, under each Advisory Agreement, the Adviser is not responsible for interest expenses, brokerage commissions and other trading expenses, taxes and other extraordinary costs such as litigation and other expenses not incurred in the ordinary course of business. For the fiscal year ended August 31, 2021, the Adviser received management fees from the Fool 100 Fund equaling 0.50% of its average daily net assets. For the fiscal year ended August 31, 2021, the Adviser received management fees from the Small-Cap Growth Fund equaling 0.85% of its average daily net assets.

 

A discussion regarding the Board’s approval of the each Fund’s Advisory Agreement and the factors the Board considered with respect to its approval is available in the Funds’ annual report to shareholders dated August 31, 2021.

 

The Adviser’s Investment Management Team

 

Bryan C. Hinmon, CFA®, and Anthony L. Arsta are the Fool 100 Fund’s portfolio managers and they each are responsible for the portfolio management decisions for the Fool 100 Fund’s assets. Bryan C. Hinmon, CFA, and Nathan G. Weisshaar, CFA®, serves as the portfolio managers to the Small-Cap Growth Fund and are each responsible for the portfolio management decisions for the Small-Cap Growth Fund’s assets.

 

Bryan C. Hinmon, CFA®

 

Bryan Hinmon is the Chief Investment Officer (“CIO”) and Senior Portfolio Manager at the Adviser, as well as Chairman of the Adviser’s Investment Committee, having served in the CIO, Senior Portfolio Manager and Chairman capacity since 2017. Mr. Hinmon serves as a Portfolio Manager for the Motley Fool Global Opportunities ETF, Motley Fool Mid-Cap Growth ETF, the Motley Fool 100 Index ETF and Motley Fool Small-Cap Growth ETF.

 

As CIO of the firm, Mr. Hinmon is responsible for leading the investment team, maintaining the firm’s investment philosophy, and managing client assets.

 

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He also works as an analyst, identifying and researching investments for the firm’s affiliate, Motley Fool Wealth Management’s separately managed account strategies. He joined the Adviser in 2014 after more than four years at TMF where he helped manage Motley Fool Pro, a long/short and options portfolio service. Mr. Hinmon also served as a senior analyst on Motley Fool Options for more than four years and led the company’s Analyst Development Program for two years.

 

Before life at TMF, Mr. Hinmon was a portfolio manager at Bulwark Capital Management, a hedge fund with an approach that balanced fundamental long-term equity investing, option income, and special situations. Earlier in his career, he worked as a research analyst for an asset manager in Naples, Florida, that provided portfolio management and operated a covered-call hedge fund. Mr. Hinmon graduated from Stetson University with a bachelor’s degree in finance. He holds the Chartered Financial Analyst designation and is a former member of The Boston Security Analysts Society and is a current member of the CFA Society of Colorado.

 

Anthony L. Arsta

 

Tony Arsta is a Portfolio Manager at the Adviser, having served in that role for the open-end mutual funds managed by the Adviser starting in 2009. Mr. Arsta complements his quality growth at a reasonable price investing focus with applications of statistical analysis and investor psychology. After joining TMF in 2008, he contributed his writing and analysis to Motley Fool Million Dollar Portfolio, as well as several other Foolish newsletter services. Mr. Arsta earned his M.B.A. with distinction from DePaul University, with a concentration in finance, and also holds a B.S. in computer science from the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

 

Nathan G. Weisshaar, CFA®

 

Nate Weisshaar is a Portfolio Manager at the Adviser, having served in that role for the Motley Fool Global Opportunities Fund and Motley Fool Mid-Cap Growth Fund since 2014. Mr. Weisshaar has a particular interest in international and banking stocks. After joining TMF in 2007 as an equity research analyst for Motley Fool Global Gains and several other newsletters, Mr. Weisshaar subsequently became a co-advisor on Motley Fool Champion Shares PRO and Motley Fool Share Advisor, TMF’s newsletter products for the UK market, while living in London from 2011 to 2014. After graduating from the University of Arizona with a B.S. in finance, Mr. Weisshaar worked as a banking consultant at United Bankers Bank in Minnesota.

 

The SAI provides additional information about the compensation of each Portfolio Manager, other accounts managed by them, and their ownership of Shares of the Funds.

 

How to Buy and Sell Shares

 

Each Fund issues and redeems its Shares at NAV only in Creation Units. Only APs may acquire Shares directly from a Fund, and only APs may tender their Shares for redemption directly to a Fund, at NAV. APs must be (i) a broker-dealer or other participant in the clearing process through the Continuous Net Settlement System of the National Securities Clearing Corporation, a clearing agency that is registered with the SEC; or (ii) a DTC participant (as discussed below). In addition, each AP must execute a Participant Agreement that has been agreed to by the Distributor, and that has been accepted by the Transfer Agent, with respect to purchases and redemptions of Creation Units. Once created, Shares trade in the secondary market in quantities less than a Creation Unit.

 

Investors can only buy and sell Shares in secondary market transactions through brokers. Shares are listed for trading on the secondary market on the Exchange and can be bought and sold throughout the trading day like other publicly traded securities.

 

When buying or selling a Fund’s Shares through a broker, you will incur customary brokerage commissions and charges, and you may pay some or all of the spread between the bid and the offer price in the secondary market on each leg of a round trip (purchase and sale) transaction. In addition, because secondary market transactions occur at market prices, you may pay more than NAV when you buy Shares, and receive less than NAV when you sell those Shares.

 

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Book Entry

 

Shares are held in book-entry form, which means that no stock certificates are issued. The Depository Trust Company (“DTC”) or its nominee is the record owner of all outstanding Shares.

 

Investors owning a Fund’s Shares are beneficial owners as shown on the records of DTC or its participants. DTC serves as the securities depository for all Shares. DTC’s participants include securities brokers and dealers, banks, trust companies, clearing corporations and other institutions that directly or indirectly maintain a custodial relationship with DTC. As a beneficial owner of Shares, you are not entitled to receive physical delivery of stock certificates or to have Shares registered in your name, and you are not considered a registered owner of Shares. Therefore, to exercise any right as an owner of Shares, you must rely upon the procedures of DTC and its participants. These procedures are the same as those that apply to any other securities that you hold in book entry or “street name” through your brokerage account.

 

Share Trading Prices on the Exchange

 

Trading prices of a Fund’s Shares on the Exchange may differ from the Fund’s daily NAV. Market forces of supply and demand, economic conditions and other factors may affect the trading prices of Shares. To provide additional information regarding the indicative value of Shares, the Exchange or a market data vendor disseminates information every 15 seconds through the facilities of the Consolidated Tape Association, or other widely disseminated means, an updated “intraday indicative value” (“IIV”) for Shares as calculated by an information provider or market data vendor. The Funds are neither involved in nor responsible for any aspect of the calculation or dissemination of the IIVs and make no representation or warranty as to the accuracy of the IIVs. If the calculation of the IIV is based on the basket of Deposit Securities, such IIV may not represent the best possible valuation of a Fund’s portfolio because the basket of Deposit Securities does not necessarily reflect the precise composition of the current Fund portfolios at a particular point in time. The IIV should not be viewed as a “real-time” update of a Fund’s NAV because the IIV may not be calculated in the same manner as the NAV, which is computed only once a day, typically at the end of the business day. The IIV is generally determined by using both current market quotations and/or price quotations obtained from broker-dealers that may trade in the Deposit Securities.

 

Frequent Purchases and Redemptions of Shares

 

The Funds impose no restrictions on the frequency of purchases and redemptions of Shares. In determining not to approve a written, established policy, the Board evaluated the risks of market timing activities by Fund shareholders. Purchases and redemptions by APs, who are the only parties that may purchase or redeem Shares directly with the Funds, are an essential part of the ETF process and help keep share trading prices in line with NAV. As such, the Funds accommodate frequent purchases and redemptions by APs. However, the Board has also determined that frequent purchases and redemptions for cash may increase tracking error and portfolio transaction costs and may lead to the realization of capital gains or loses. To minimize these potential consequences of frequent purchases and redemptions, the Funds employ fair value pricing and impose transaction fees on purchases and redemptions of Creation Units to cover the custodial and other costs incurred by the Funds in effecting trades. In addition, the Funds reserve the right to reject any purchase order at any time.

 

Determination of Net Asset Value

 

Each Fund’s NAV is calculated as of the scheduled close of regular trading on the NYSE, generally 4:00 p.m. Eastern Time, each day the NYSE is open for business. The NAV for a Fund is calculated by dividing the Fund’s net assets by its Shares outstanding.

 

In calculating its NAV, a Fund generally values its assets on the basis of market quotations, last sale prices, or estimates of value furnished by a pricing service or brokers who make markets in such instruments. If such information is not available for a security held by the Fund or is determined to be unreliable, the security will be valued at fair value estimates under guidelines established by the Board.

 

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Fair Value Pricing

 

If market quotations are unavailable or deemed unreliable by the Funds’ administrator, in consultation with the Adviser, securities will be fair valued by the Adviser in accordance with procedures adopted by the Board and under the Board’s ultimate supervision. Relying on prices supplied by pricing services or dealers or using fair valuation involves the risk that the values used by a Fund to price its investments may be higher or lower than the values used by other investment companies and investors to price the same investments. In addition, fair value pricing could result in a difference between the prices used to calculate the Fool 100 Fund’s NAV and the prices used by the Fool 100 Index. This may result in a difference between the Fool 100 Fund’s performance and the performance of the Fool 100 Index.

 

Dividends, Distributions, and Taxes

 

Dividends and Distributions

 

Each Fund intends to pay out dividends, if any, and distribute any net realized capital gains to its shareholders at least annually.

 

Dividend Reinvestment Service

 

Brokers may make the DTC book-entry dividend reinvestment service available to their customers who own Shares. If this service is available and used, dividend distributions of both income and capital gains will automatically be reinvested in additional whole Shares of a Fund purchased on the secondary market. Without this service, investors would receive their distributions in cash. In order to achieve the maximum total return on their investments, investors are encouraged to use the dividend reinvestment service. To determine whether the dividend reinvestment service is available and whether there is a commission or other charge for using this service, consult your broker. Brokers may require a Fund’s shareholders to adhere to specific procedures and timetables.

 

Taxes

 

As with any investment, you should consider how your investment in shares of a Fund will be taxed. The tax information in this Prospectus is provided as general information. Except where otherwise indicated, the discussion relates to investors who are individual United States citizens or residents. You should consult your own tax professional about the tax consequences of an investment in shares of a Fund.

 

Unless your investment in shares of a Fund is made through a tax-exempt entity or tax-advantaged account, such as an IRA plan, you need to be aware of the possible tax consequences when: (i) the Fund makes distributions; (ii) you sell your shares listed on the Exchange; and (iii) you purchase or redeem Creation Units.

 

Taxes on Distributions

 

Each Fund intends to distribute, at least annually, substantially all of its net investment income and net capital gains income. For federal income tax purposes, distributions of investment income are generally taxable as ordinary income or qualified dividend income. Taxes on distributions of capital gains (if any) are determined by how long a Fund owned the investments that generated them, rather than how long a shareholder has owned his or her shares of the Fund. Sales of assets held by a Fund for more than one year generally result in long-term capital gains and losses, and sales of assets held by a Fund for one year or less generally result in short-term capital gains and losses. Distributions of a Fund’s net capital gain (the excess of net long-term capital gains over net short-term capital losses) that are reported by a Fund as capital gain dividends (“Capital Gain Dividends”) will be taxable as long-term capital gains, which for non-corporate shareholders are subject to tax at reduced rates. Distributions of short-term capital gain will generally be taxable as ordinary income. Dividends and distributions are generally taxable to you whether you receive them in cash or reinvest them in additional shares.

 

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Distributions reported by a Fund as “qualified dividend income” are generally taxed to non-corporate shareholders at rates applicable to long-term capital gains, provided holding period and other requirements are met. “Qualified dividend income” generally is income derived from dividends paid by U.S. corporations or certain foreign corporations that are either incorporated in a U.S. possession or eligible for tax benefits under certain U.S. income tax treaties. In addition, dividends that a Fund receives in respect of stock of certain foreign corporations may be qualified dividend income if that stock is readily tradable on an established U.S. securities market. The amount of a Fund’s distributions that qualify for this favorable treatment may be reduced as a result of the Fund’s securities lending activities, if any. Corporate shareholders may be entitled to a dividends-received deduction for the portion of dividends they receive from a Fund that are attributable to dividends received by the Fund from U.S. corporations, subject to certain limitations. The amount of the dividends qualifying for this deduction may, however, be reduced as a result of a Fund’s securities lending activities, if any.

 

Shortly after the close of each calendar year, you will be informed of the character of any distributions received from a Fund.

 

U.S. individuals with income exceeding specified thresholds are subject to a 3.8% Medicare contribution tax on all or a portion of their “net investment income,” which includes interest, dividends, and certain capital gains (including capital gains distributions and capital gains realized on the sale of shares of a Fund). This 3.8% tax also applies to all or a portion of the undistributed net investment income of certain shareholders that are estates and trusts.

 

In general, your distributions are subject to federal income tax for the year in which they are paid. Certain distributions paid in January, however, may be treated as paid on December 31 of the prior year. Distributions are generally taxable even if they are paid from income or gains earned by a Fund before your investment (and thus were included in the shares’ NAV when you purchased your shares of the Fund).

 

You may wish to avoid investing in a Fund shortly before a dividend or other distribution, because such a distribution will generally be taxable to you even though it may economically represent a return of a portion of your investment. This adverse tax result is known as “buying into a dividend.”

 

Taxes When Shares are Sold on the Exchange

 

For federal income tax purposes, any capital gain or loss realized upon a sale of shares of a Fund generally is treated as a long-term capital gain or loss if those shares have been held for more than 12 months and as a short-term capital gain or loss if those shares have been held for 12 months or less. However, any capital loss on a sale of shares held for six months or less is treated as long-term capital loss to the extent of Capital Gain Dividends paid with respect to such shares of a Fund. Any loss realized on a sale will be disallowed to the extent shares of a Fund are acquired, including through reinvestment of dividends, within a 61-day period beginning 30 days before and ending 30 days after the sale of shares. If disallowed, the loss will be reflected in an upward adjustment to the basis of the shares acquired.

 

IRAs and Other Tax-Qualified Plans

 

The one major exception to the preceding tax principles is that distributions on and sales of shares of a Fund held in an IRA (or other tax-qualified plan) will not be currently taxable unless it borrowed to acquire the shares.

 

U.S. Tax Treatment of Foreign Shareholders

 

If you are neither a resident nor a citizen of the United States or if you are a foreign entity, distributions (other than Capital Gain Dividends) paid to you by a Fund will generally be subject to a U.S. withholding tax at the rate of 30%, unless a lower treaty rate applies. Each Fund may, under certain circumstances, report all or a portion of a dividend as an “interest-related dividend” or a “short-term capital gain dividend,” which would generally be exempt from this 30% U.S. withholding tax, provided certain other requirements are met.

 

Foreign shareholders will generally not be subject to U.S. tax on gains realized on the sale of shares in a Fund, except that a nonresident alien individual who is present in the United States for 183 days or more in a calendar year will be taxable on such gains and on capital gain dividends from a Fund.

 

In contrast, if a foreign investor conducts a trade or business in the United States and the investment in a Fund is effectively connected with that trade or business, then the foreign investor’s income from a Fund will generally be subject to U.S. federal income tax at graduated rates in a manner similar to the income of a U.S. citizen or resident.

 

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Each Fund is generally required to withhold 30% on certain payments to shareholders that are foreign entities and that fail to meet prescribed information reporting or certification requirements.

 

All foreign investors should consult their own tax advisors regarding the tax consequences in their country of residence of an investment in a Fund.

 

Backup Withholding

 

Each Fund (or a financial intermediary, such as a broker, through which a shareholder owns shares of the Fund) generally is required to withhold and remit to the U.S. Treasury a percentage of the taxable distributions and sale or redemption proceeds paid to any shareholder who fails to properly furnish a correct taxpayer identification number, who has underreported dividend or interest income, or who fails to certify that he, she or it is not subject to such backup withholding. The current backup withholding rate is 24%.

 

Taxes on Purchases and Redemptions of Creation Units

 

An AP having the U.S. dollar as its functional currency for U.S. federal income tax purposes who exchanges securities for Creation Units generally recognizes a gain or a loss. The gain or loss will be equal to the difference between the market value of the Creation Units at the time of the exchange and the sum of the AP’s aggregate basis in the securities surrendered plus the amount of cash paid for such Creation Units. The Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”), however, may assert that a loss realized upon an exchange of securities for Creation Units cannot be deducted currently under the rules governing “wash sales,” or on the basis that there has been no significant change in economic position. Any gain or loss realized by an AP upon a creation of Creation Units will be treated as capital gain or loss if the AP holds the securities exchanged therefor as capital assets, and otherwise will be ordinary income or loss. Any capital gain or loss realized upon the creation of Creation Units will generally be treated as long-term capital gain or loss if the securities exchanged for such Creation Units have been held by the AP for more than 12 months, and otherwise will be short-term capital gain or loss.

 

The Company on behalf of each Fund has the right to reject an order for a purchase of Creation Units if the AP (or a group of APs) would, upon obtaining the Creation Units so ordered, own 80% or more of the outstanding shares of a Fund and if, pursuant to Section 351 of the Code, the Fund would have a basis in the securities different from the market value of such securities on the date of deposit. The Company also has the right to require information necessary to determine beneficial share ownership for purposes of the 80% determination. If a Fund does issue Creation Units to an AP (or group of APs) that would, upon obtaining the Creation Units so ordered, own 80% or more of the outstanding shares of the Fund, the AP (or group of APs) may not recognize gain or loss upon the exchange of securities for Creation Units.

 

An AP who redeems Creation Units will generally recognize a gain or loss equal to the difference between the sum of the aggregate market value of any securities received plus the amount of any cash received for such Creation Units and the AP’s basis in the Creation Units. Any gain or loss realized by an AP upon a redemption of Creation Units will be treated as capital gain or loss if the AP holds the shares comprising the Creation Units as capital assets, and otherwise will be ordinary income or loss. Any capital gain or loss realized upon the redemption of Creation Units will generally be treated as long-term capital gain or loss if the shares comprising the Creation Units have been held by the AP for more than 12 months, and otherwise will generally be short-term capital gain or loss. Any capital loss realized upon a redemption of Creation Units held for six months or less will be treated as a long-term capital loss to the extent of any amounts treated as distributions to the applicable AP of long-term capital gains with respect to the Creation Units (including any amounts credited to the AP as undistributed capital gains).

 

Each Fund may include a payment of cash in addition to, or in place of, the delivery of a basket of securities upon the redemption of Creation Units. A Fund may sell portfolio securities to obtain the cash needed to distribute redemption proceeds. This may cause the Fund to recognize investment income and/or capital gains or losses that it might not have recognized if it had completely satisfied the redemption in-kind. As a result, a Fund may be less tax efficient if it includes such a cash payment in the proceeds paid upon the redemption of Creation Units.

 

Persons purchasing or redeeming Creation Units should consult their own tax advisers with respect to the tax treatment of any creation or redemption transaction.

 

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The foregoing discussion summarizes some of the possible consequences under current federal tax law of an investment in a Fund. It is not a substitute for personal tax advice. You also may be subject to state and local tax on Fund distributions and sales of shares of a Fund. Consult your personal tax advisor about the potential tax consequences of an investment in Shares of a Fund under all applicable tax laws. For more information, please see the section entitled “DIVIDENDS, DISTRIBUTIONS, AND TAXES” in the SAI.

 

Distribution

 

The Distributor, Quasar Distributors, LLC, is a broker-dealer registered with the SEC. The Distributor distributes Creation Units for the Funds on an agency basis and does not maintain a secondary market in Shares. The Distributor has no role in determining the policies of the Funds or the securities that are purchased or sold by the Funds. The Distributor’s principal address is 111 East Kilbourn Avenue, Suite 2200, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53202.

 

Additional Considerations

 

Payments to Financial Intermediaries

 

The Adviser, out of its own resources and without additional cost to the Funds or their shareholders, may pay intermediaries, including affiliates of the Adviser, for the sale of Fund Shares and related services, including participation in activities that are designed to make intermediaries more knowledgeable about exchange traded products. Payments are generally made to intermediaries that provide shareholder servicing, marketing and related sales support, educational training or support, or access to sales meetings, sales representatives and management representatives of the intermediary. Payments may also be made to intermediaries for making Shares of a Fund available to their customers generally and in investment programs. The Adviser may also reimburse expenses or make payments from its own resources to intermediaries in consideration of services or other activities the Adviser believes may facilitate investment in the Funds.

 

The possibility of receiving, or the receipt of, the payments described above may provide intermediaries or their salespersons with an incentive to favor sales of Shares of the Funds, and other funds whose affiliates make similar compensation available, over other investments that do not make such payments. Investors may wish to take such payment arrangements into account when considering and evaluating any recommendations relating to the Funds and other ETFs.

 

Premium/Discount Information

 

Information regarding how often Shares traded on the Exchange at a price above (i.e., at a premium) or below (i.e., at a discount) the NAV is available, free of charge, on the Funds’ website at www.mfamfunds.com/resources.

 

Continuous Offering

 

The method by which Creation Units are purchased and traded may raise certain issues under applicable securities laws. Because new Creation Units are issued and sold by the Funds on an ongoing basis, at any point a “distribution,” as such term is used in the Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the “Securities Act”), may occur. Broker-dealers and other persons are cautioned that some activities on their part may, depending on the circumstances, result in their being deemed participants in a distribution in a manner which could render them statutory underwriters and subject them to the Prospectus delivery and liability provisions of the Securities Act.

 

For example, a broker-dealer firm or its client may be deemed a statutory underwriter if it takes Creation Units after placing an order with the Distributor, breaks them down into individual Shares, and sells such Shares directly to customers, or if it chooses to couple the creation of a supply of new Shares with an active selling effort involving solicitation of secondary market demand for Shares. A determination of whether one is an underwriter for purposes of the Securities Act must take into account all the facts and circumstances pertaining to the activities of the broker-dealer or its client in the particular case, and the examples mentioned above should not be considered a complete description of all the activities that could lead to categorization as an underwriter.

 

30

 

 

Broker-dealer firms should also note that dealers who are not “underwriters” but are effecting transactions in Shares, whether or not participating in the distribution of Shares, are generally required to deliver a prospectus. This is because the prospectus delivery exemption in Section 4(a)(3) of the Securities Act is not available with respect to such transactions as a result of Section 24(d) of the 1940 Act. As a result, broker dealer-firms should note that dealers who are not underwriters but are participating in a distribution (as contrasted with ordinary secondary market transactions) and thus dealing with Shares that are part of an over-allotment within the meaning of Section 4(a)(3)(a) of the Securities Act would be unable to take advantage of the prospectus delivery exemption provided by Section 4(a)(3) of the Securities Act. Firms that incur a prospectus delivery obligation with respect to Shares of a Fund are reminded that under Rule 153 of the Securities Act, a prospectus delivery obligation under Section 5(b)(2) of the Securities Act owed to an exchange member in connection with a sale on the Exchange is satisfied by the fact that such Fund’s Prospectus is available on the SEC’s electronic filing system. The prospectus delivery mechanism provided in Rule 153 of the Securities Act is only available with respect to transactions on an exchange.

 

Additional Information

 

The Funds enter into contractual arrangements with various parties, including among others the Funds’ investment adviser, who provide services to the Funds. Shareholders are not parties to, or intended (or “third party”) beneficiaries of, those contractual arrangements.

 

The Prospectus and the SAI provide information concerning the Funds that you should consider in determining whether to purchase Shares of a Fund. The Funds may make changes to this information from time to time. Neither this Prospectus nor the SAI is intended to give rise to any contract rights or other rights in any shareholder, other than any rights conferred explicitly by federal or state securities laws that may not be waived.

 

NO PERSON HAS BEEN AUTHORIZED TO GIVE ANY INFORMATION OR MAKE ANY REPRESENTATIONS NOT CONTAINED IN THIS PROSPECTUS OR IN THE FUNDS’ SAI INCORPORATED HEREIN BY REFERENCE, IN CONNECTION WITH THE OFFERING MADE BY THIS PROSPECTUS AND, IF GIVEN OR MADE, SUCH REPRESENTATIONS MUST NOT BE RELIED UPON AS HAVING BEEN AUTHORIZED BY THE COMPANY OR ITS DISTRIBUTOR. THIS PROSPECTUS DOES NOT CONSTITUTE AN OFFERING BY THE COMPANY OR BY THE DISTRIBUTOR IN ANY JURISDICTION IN WHICH SUCH OFFERING MAY NOT LAWFULLY BE MADE.

 

 

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Financial Highlights

 

The following financial highlights tables are intended to help you understand each Fund’s financial performance for the period of its operations. Certain information reflects financial results for a single Share. Total returns in the tables represent the rate an investor would have earned (or lost) on an investment in a Fund (assuming reinvestment of all dividends and distributions). The financial information for the periods shown has been audited by Tait, Weller & Baker LLP, the independent registered public accounting firm, which is available upon request.

 

Motley Fool 100 Index ETF

 

FOR THE
YEAR
ENDED
AUGUST 31,

   

FOR THE
YEAR
ENDED
AUGUST 31,

   

FOR THE
YEAR
ENDED
AUGUST 31,

   

FOR THE
PERIOD
ENDED
AUGUST 31,

 
   

2021

   

2020

   

2019

   

2018(1)

 

PER SHARE OPERATING PERFORMANCE

                               

Net asset value, beginning of period

  $ 33.67     $ 22.46     $ 22.10     $ 20.00  

Net investment income/(loss)(2)

    0.05       0.11       0.15       0.08  

Net realized and unrealized gain/(loss) from investments

    8.59       11.23       0.32       2.02  

Net increase/(decrease) in net assets resulting from operations

    8.64       11.34       0.47       2.10  

Dividends and distributions to shareholders from:

                               

Net investment income

    (0.10 )     (0.13 )     (0.11 )      

Net realized capital gains

    (0.05 )                  

Total dividends and distributions to shareholders

    (0.15 )     (0.13 )     (0.11 )      

Net asset value, end of period

  $ 42.16     $ 33.67     $ 22.46     $ 22.10  

Market value, end of period

  $ 42.20     $ 33.66     $ 22.42     $ 22.13  

Total investment return/(loss) on net asset value(3)

    25.74 %     50.67 %     2.27 %     10.49 %(5)

Total investment return/(loss) on market price(4)

    25.91 %     50.89 %     1.93 %     10.65 %(5)

RATIO/SUPPLEMENTAL DATA

                               

Net assets, end of period (000’s omitted)

  $ 528,011     $ 337,547     $ 185,871     $ 140,879  

Ratio of expenses to average net assets

    0.50 %     0.50 %     0.50 %     0.50 %(6)

Ratio of net investment income/(loss) to average net assets

    0.15 %     0.43 %     0.69 %     0.68 %(6)

Portfolio turnover rate

    23 %     26 %     26 %     10 %(5)

 

(1)

Inception date of the Fund was January 29, 2018.

(2)

Per share data calculated using average shares outstanding method.

(3)

Total investment return/(loss) on net asset value is calculated assuming a purchase of shares on the first day and a sale of shares on the last day of each period reported and includes reinvestments of dividends and distributions, if any.

(4)

Total investment return/(loss) on market price is calculated assuming an initial investment made at the market price on the first day of the period, reinvestment of dividends and distributions at market price during the period and redemption at market price on the last day of the period.

(5)

Not annualized.

(6)

Annualized.

 

 

32

 

 

Motley Fool Small-Cap Growth ETF

 

FOR THE
YEAR
ENDED
AUGUST 31,

   

FOR THE
YEAR
ENDED
AUGUST 31,

   

FOR THE
PERIOD
ENDED
AUGUST 31,

 
   

2021

   

2020

   

2019(1)

 

PER SHARE OPERATING PERFORMANCE

                       

Net asset value, beginning of period

  $ 32.59     $ 23.33     $ 20.00  

Net investment income/(loss)(2)

    (0.19 )     (0.07 )     (3) 

Net realized and unrealized gain/(loss) from investments

    10.48       9.67       3.33  

Net increase/(decrease) in net assets resulting from operations

    10.29       9.60       3.33  

Dividends and distributions to shareholders from:

                       

Net realized capital gains

    (2.15 )     (0.34 )      

Total dividends and distributions to shareholders

    (2.15 )     (0.34 )      

Net asset value, end of period

  $ 40.73     $ 32.59     $ 23.33  

Market value, end of period

  $ 40.74     $ 32.68     $ 23.34  

Total investment return/(loss) on net asset value(4)

    32.00 %     41.58 %     16.65 %(6)

Total investment return/(loss) on market price(5)

    31.54 %     41.88 %     16.69 %(6)

RATIO/SUPPLEMENTAL DATA

                       

Net assets, end of period (000’s omitted)

  $ 189,382     $ 106,745     $ 71,153  

Ratio of expenses to average net assets

    0.85 %     0.85 %     0.85 %(7)

Ratio of net investment income/(loss) to average net assets

    (0.51 )%     (0.29 )%     (0.01 )%(7)

Portfolio turnover rate

    21 %     27 %     21 %(6)

 

(1)

Inception date of the Fund was October 29, 2018.

(2)

Per share data calculated using average shares outstanding method.

(3)

Amount rounds to less than 0.01 per share.

(4)

Total investment return/(loss) on net asset value is calculated assuming a purchase of shares on the first day and a sale of shares on the last day of each period reported and includes reinvestments of dividends and distributions, if any.

(5)

Total investment return/(loss) on market price is calculated assuming an initial investment made at the market price on the first day of the period, reinvestment of dividends and distributions at market price during the period, and redemption at market price on the last day of the period.

(6)

Not annualized.

(7)

Annualized.

 

 

 

33

 

 

Privacy Notice

 

WHAT DO THE MOTLEY FOOL FUNDS DO WITH YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION?

 

Why?: Financial companies choose how they share your personal information. Federal law gives consumers the right to limit some but not all sharing. Federal law also requires us to tell you how we collect, share, and protect your personal information.

 

Please read this notice carefully to understand what we do.

 

What?: The type of personal information we collect and share depend on the product or service you have with us. This information can include:

 

Social Security number and transaction history

 

Account balances and checking account information

 

Account transactions and wire transfer instructions

 

When you are no longer a customer, we continue to share your information as described in this notice.

 

How?: All financial companies need to share customers’ personal information to run their everyday business. In the section below, we list the reasons financial companies can share their customers’ personal information; the reasons the Motley Fool Funds choose to share; and whether you can limit this sharing.

 

Reasons we can share your personal information

Do the Motley Fool Funds share?

Can you limit this sharing?

For our everyday business purposes
such as to process your transactions, maintain your account(s), respond to court orders and legal investigations, or report to credit bureaus

Yes

No

For our marketing purposes —
to offer our products and services to you

Yes

No

For joint marketing with other financial companies

No

We don’t share.

For our affiliates’ everyday business purposes
information about your transactions and experiences

Yes

No

For our affiliates’ everyday business purposes — information about your creditworthiness

No

We don’t share.

For our affiliates to market to you

Yes

Yes

For nonaffiliates to market to you

No

We don’t share.

 

Visit us online: https://www.mfamfunds.com/website-privacy-policy/

 

Please note:

 

 

If you are a new customer, we can begin sharing your information 30 days from the days from the date we sent this notice. When you are no longer our customer, we continue to share your information as described in this notice.

 

However, you can contact us at any time to limit our sharing.

 

Questions: Call 1-888-863-8803 or go to www.mfamfunds.com

 

34

 

 

WHAT WE DO:

 

How do the Motley Fool Funds protect my personal information?

 

We collect your personal information, for example, when you:

 

Open an account or provide account information

 

Make deposits or withdrawals from your account

 

Make a wire transfer or tell us where to send the money

 

We also collect your personal information from other companies.

 

WHY CAN’T I LIMIT ALL SHARING?

 

Federal law gives you the right to limit only:

 

Sharing for affiliates everyday business purposes – information about your creditworthiness

 

Make deposits or withdrawals from your account

 

Sharing for nonaffiliates to market to you

 

State laws and individual companies may give you additional rights to limit sharing.

 

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN I LIMIT SHARING FOR AN ACCOUNT I HOLD JOINTLY WITH SOMEONE ELSE?

 

Your choices will apply to everyone on your account.

 

EUROPEAN UNION’S GENERAL DATA PROTECTION REGULATION

 

In addition to the above information, where applicable, you have the following rights under the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) and U.S. Privacy Laws, as applicable and to the extent permitted by law, to

 

Check whether we hold personal information about you and to access such data (in accordance with our policy)

 

Request the correction of personal information about you that is inaccurate

 

Have a copy of the personal information we hold about you provided to you or another “controller” where technically feasible

 

Request the erasure of your personal information

 

Request the restriction of processing concerning you

 

The legal grounds for processing of your personal information is for contractual necessity and compliance with law.

 

If you wish to exercise any of your rights above, please call: 1-888-863-8803.

 

You are required to ensure the personal information we hold about you is up-to-date and accurate and you must notify us of any changes to the personal data you provided to us.

 

Motley Fool Funds shall retain your personal data for as long as you are an investor in the Funds and thereafter as long as necessary to comply with applicable laws that require the Funds to retain your personal data, such as the Securities and Exchange Commission’s data retention rules. Your personal data will be transferred to the United States so that the Funds may provide the agreed upon services for you. No adequacy decision has been rendered by the European Commission as to the data protection of your personal data when transferring it to the United States. However, the Funds do take the security of your personal data seriously.

 

 

35

 

 

DEFINITIONS:

 

Affiliates - Companies related by common ownership or control. They can be financial and nonfinancial companies.

Our affiliates include companies with a Motley Fool name; financial companies such as Motley Fool Investment Management, LLC and Motley Fool Asset Management, LLC; and nonfinancial companies such as The Motley Fool, LLC and The Motley Fool Holdings, Inc.

 

Nonaffiliates - Companies not related by common ownership or control. They can be financial and nonfinancial companies.

Motley Fool does not share with nonaffiliates so they can market to you.

 

Joint marketing - A formal agreement between nonaffiliated financial companies that together market financial products or services to you.

The Motley Fool Funds do not jointly market.

 

Controller - “Controller” means the natural or legal person, public authority, agency or other body which, alone or jointly with others, determines the purposes and means of the processing of personal data; where the purposes and means of such processing are determined by European Union or European Member State law, the controller or the specific criteria for its nomination may be provided for by European Union or European Member State law.

 

 

36

 

 

INVESTMENT ADVISER

 

Motley Fool Asset Management, LLC
2000 Duke Street
Suite 275
Alexandria, Virginia 22314

 

ADMINISTRATOR AND
TRANSFER AGENT

 

U.S. Bank Global Fund Services
P.O. Box 701
Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53201-0701

 

CUSTODIAN

 

U.S. Bank, N.A.
1555 North Rivercenter Drive, Suite 302
Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53212

 

INDEPENDENT REGISTERED
PUBLIC ACCOUNTING FIRM

 

Tait, Weller & Baker LLP
Two Liberty Place, 50 South 16th Street, Suite 2900
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19102

 

UNDERWRITER

 

Quasar Distributors, LLC
111 East Kilbourn Avenue, Suite 2200
Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53202

 

LEGAL COUNSEL

 

Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP
One Logan Square, Suite 2000
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103-6996

 

37

 

 

FOR MORE INFORMATION

 

For more information about the Funds, the following documents are available free upon request:

 

Annual/Semi-annual Reports

 

Additional information about the Funds’ investments is available in the Funds’ annual and semi-annual reports to shareholders. The annual report contains a discussion of the market conditions and investment strategies that significantly affected each Fund’s performance during its most recently completed fiscal year.

 

Statement of Additional Information

 

The SAI dated December 31, 2021 provides more details about the Funds and their policies. The current SAI is on file with the SEC and is incorporated by reference into (and is legally a part of) this Prospectus.

 

TO OBTAIN INFORMATION

 

The SAI is available, without charge, upon request along with the semi-annual and annual reports. To obtain a free copy of the SAI or the semi-annual or annual reports or if you have questions about the Funds:

 

By Internet

 

Go to www.mfamfunds.com.

 

By Telephone

 

Call 1-800-617-0004 or your securities dealer.

 

By Mail

 

Write to:

 

Motley Fool Funds
c/o U.S. Bank Global Fund Services
P.O. Box 701
Milwaukee, WI 53201-0701

 

From the SEC

 

Information about the Funds (including the SAI) and other information about the Funds are available on the EDGAR Database on the SEC’s Internet site at www.sec.gov, and copies of this information may be obtained, after paying a duplicating fee, by sending an electronic request to [email protected].

 

Investment Company Act File Number 811-05518