AltShares Merger Arbitrage ETF
Data updated: 2026-08-12
C000216184 — AltShares Merger Arbitrage ETF. United States Small Cap Blend / Core Equity · $103.08M AUM. Holdings, fees, performance and SEC filings.
C000216184 Fund Overview
AltShares Merger Arbitrage ETF is a US ETF managed by Altshares Trust, categorised as United States Small Cap Blend / Core Equity. ABC INVEST provides holdings, performance, costs, cashflows, risk data, prospectus documents and SEC filings, sourced from SEC filings.
- Type: US ETF
- Manager: Altshares Trust
- Category: United States Small Cap Blend / Core Equity
- Assets under management: $103.08M
- 1-year return: 4.8%
- SEC CIK: 0001779306
- SEC series ID: S000067196
- Share class ID: C000216184
C000216184 Investment Objective and Strategy
AltShares Merger Arbitrage ETF describes its objective and strategy as follows, from its latest prospectus filed with the SEC by Altshares Trust.
Investment objective
"AltShares Merger Arbitrage ETF (the ""Fund"") seeks to provide investment results that closely correspond, before fees and expenses, to the performance of its underlying index, the Water Island Merger Arbitrage USD Hedged Index (the ""Underlying Index"")."
Principal investment strategy
"The Fund seeks to track the performance of the Underlying Index, which is designed to reflect a global merger arbitrage strategy. The most common approach to merger arbitrage, and the approach the Underlying Index (and by extension the Fund) reflects, is to seek to capture the difference (the ""spread"") between the price at which the stock of a target company in a publicly announced merger, takeover, tender offer, or leveraged buy-out (the ""Target"") trades after the announcement of the acquisition and the price the acquiring company (the ""Acquirer"") has agreed to pay for the stock of the Target. The Underlying Index is rebalanced and reconstituted twice per month. The Fund reconstitutes and rebalances on the same schedule as the Underlying Index. The Fund's investment adviser, Water Island Capital, LLC (the ""Adviser""), generally expects the Underlying Index to include between 30-50 Targets at each reconstitution.
To gain exposure to the Underlying Index, the Fund will establish long positions in shares of the Target stocks. When the terms of a transaction call for the exchange of an Acquirer's common stock, the Underlying Index, as a result of the index methodology, will include short exposure in the Acquirer's stock at the deal's exchange ratio. This short exposure is designed to lock in the current deal spread, and to hedge against the risk of a decline in the deal value as a result of a decline in the value of the Acquirer's stock. The Fund may invest in derivatives, such as swaps, to obtain exposure to long and short constituents of the Underlying Index. The Underlying Index is comprised of securities of United States (""U.S."") and foreign companies of any market capitalization, which may from time to time include small and medium capitalization companies.
The Underlying Index is calculated in U.S. dollars. The Underlying Index hedges against fluctuations in the relative value of foreign currencies against the U.S. dollar. The Fund uses forward currency or futures contracts to effectuate these hedges in the Underlying Index. The amount of forward and futures contracts held by the Fund is based on the aggregate exposure of the Fund to each currency. The Underlying Index may also include an allocation to cash-like instruments, such as money market and similar cash management funds and ultra short-term bond exchange-traded funds (""ETFs""). In addition, when a transaction closes, any allocation in the Underlying Index to the securities of the Target and/or Acquirer will be reallocated to such instruments. The Underlying Index generally only allocates to cash when there are an insufficient number of Targets for inclusion in the Underlying Index and when a transaction represented by a Target in the Underlying Index has been consummated or abandoned.
Accordingly, cash allocations in the Underlying Index and Fund are generally removed as part of each Underlying Index reconstitution, though cash allocations may continue to be included if there are an insufficient number of Targets. Under normal market conditions, the Fund will invest at least 80% of its net assets (including borrowings for investment purposes) in the constituents of the Underlying Index and in financial instruments with economic characteristics similar to such constituents, such as swaps on such constituents. Although the Fund expects to replicate (or hold all components of) the Underlying Index, the Fund reserves the right to use representative sampling to track the Underlying Index. The Fund may invest up to 20% of its net assets in instruments that are not included in the Underlying Index, but that the Adviser believes will help the Fund track the Underlying Index.
The Fund may also invest in financial instruments, including swap agreements, futures contracts, ETFs, and options on securities or equity securities indices. With respect to derivatives, the Fund will invest principally in swaps and forward contracts on foreign currencies. The Fund will invest in other funds, such as money market and similar cash management funds and ultra short-term bond ETFs, only to reflect cash allocations by the Underlying Index. The Fund is non-diversified. To the extent the Underlying Index is concentrated in a particular industry, the Fund is expected to be concentrated in that industry. As of August 30, 2025, the Underlying Index included 49 long positions and 16 short positions in companies with market capitalizations of between $280 million and $62 billion. The Underlying Index was developed by Water Island Indices LLC (the ""Index Provider""), an affiliate of the Adviser.
The Index Calculation Agent is Solactive AG, which is not affiliated with the Index Provider, the Fund, or the Adviser. The Index Calculation Agent provides information to the Fund about the constituents of the Underlying Index and does not provide investment advice with respect to the desirability of investing in, purchasing or selling securities."
C000216184 Holdings
Top 10 holdings of AltShares Merger Arbitrage ETF by percentage of net assets, from the fund's latest SEC N-PORT filing.
| Holding | % of net assets |
|---|---|
| Morgan Stanley Prime Broker US | 15.53% |
| Warner Bros Discovery Inc | 3.59% |
| State Street Global Advisors | 2.99% |
| Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC | 2.99% |
| Electronic Arts Inc | 2.80% |
| Clearwater Analytics Holdings Inc | 2.79% |
| AES Corp/The | 2.78% |
| Masimo Corp | 2.77% |
| Chart Industries Inc | 2.72% |
| Penumbra Inc | 2.71% |
C000216184 Portfolio Allocation
Asset-class allocation of AltShares Merger Arbitrage ETF by percentage of net assets, from the latest SEC N-PORT filing.
| Asset class | Allocation |
|---|---|
| Equity | 92.9% |
| Other | 15.5% |
| Cash & Equivalents | 6.8% |
C000216184 Performance
Total returns for C000216184 (as of 2026-10-01), from SEC filings.
| Period | Total return |
|---|---|
| YTD | 1.9% |
| 1 year | 4.8% |
| 3 years (annualised) | 6.4% |
| 5 years (annualised) | 3.9% |
C000216184 Risk Information
Risk metrics for C000216184, derived from monthly returns in SEC filings.
- 1-year volatility (annualised): 1.0%
C000216184 Costs and Fees
C000216184 costs about $76 per $10,000 invested per year in fund expenses.
- Net expense ratio: 0.76%
- Gross expense ratio: 0.76%
- Portfolio turnover: 431%
- Brokerage commissions: 55.87 bps of average net assets (SEC N-CEN)
C000216184 Cashflows
Over the 12 months to 2026-05, AltShares Merger Arbitrage ETF had net inflows of $12.40M, from monthly SEC N-PORT filings.
| Month | Net flow |
|---|---|
| 2026-05 | $3.25M |
| 2026-04 | −$5.90M |
| 2026-03 | $1.17M |
| 2026-02 | $0 |
| 2026-01 | $2.03M |
| 2025-12 | $2.60M |
C000216184 Debt Constituents
No individual debt constituents are reported in AltShares Merger Arbitrage ETF's latest SEC N-PORT filing.
C000216184 Prospectus and SEC Filings
Official AltShares Merger Arbitrage ETF filings on SEC EDGAR — prospectus, portfolio holdings and annual reports.
- Prospectus (485BPOS) — filed 2025-09-26
- Prospectus (485BPOS) — filed 2024-09-27
- Prospectus (485BPOS) — filed 2023-09-28
- Portfolio holdings (N-PORT) — filed 2026-07-07
- Portfolio holdings (N-PORT) — filed 2026-04-28
- Portfolio holdings (N-PORT) — filed 2026-01-05
- Annual census (N-CEN) — filed 2026-08-12
- Annual census (N-CEN) — filed 2025-08-14
Related Funds
Other United States Small Cap Blend / Core Equity funds tracked on ABC INVEST:
Data Sources
ABC INVEST compiles this page from public filings made to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) through EDGAR: portfolio holdings and monthly cashflows from Form N-PORT, expenses and returns from fund prospectuses (Form 485BPOS) and the SEC DERA Risk/Return Summary data sets, annual data from Form N-CEN, and shareholder reports from Form N-CSR.