Our Team

Key Personnel

Phil Bak

CEO, Armada ETF Advisors

Phil Bak is the CEO of Armada ETFs. Phil has been innovating in the ETF industry for over 15 years. He has previously served as Founder/CEO of Exponential ETFs, an ETF issuer and sub-advisor acquired by Tidal ETF Services in 2020. Phil has also served as Chief Investment Officer at Signal Advisors, a venture-backed startup in Detroit and Managing Director at the New York Stock Exchange where he worked on market structure enhancements, ETF listing rule changes, market maker incentive programs, and helping with asset managers launch ETFs. Prior to that Phil held product development roles where he developed and launched the first ever mixed-asset ETF, the first ever carbon-credit ETF, and patented the use of a controlled foreign corporation inside a ’33 act ETP.

Phil is also a Board Advisor of Civex, a startup platform bringing investor advocacy to retail investors, and Principal of Exponential Indexes. Phil is a graduate of Yeshiva University, is a Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA), host of two podcasts (The ETF Experience and the Phil Bak Podcast), and an author who has been published on Yahoo Finance, TheStreet, Think Advisor, Seeking Alpha and regularly on Substack. Phil has been featured in top-tier media outlets such as the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, CNBC and Financial Times.

Alfred C. Otero

Portfolio Manager for HAUS
Armada ETF Advisors

Mr. Otero joined the Sub-Adviser in February 2022. Until January 31, 2021, Mr. Otero served as a REIT Portfolio Manager at EII Capital Management (EII). He originally joined EII in 1996 as a research analyst on the U.S. REIT investment team and became head of the U.S. REIT business in 2004 with responsibility for all U.S. dedicated investment strategies.

Mr. Otero became a co-portfolio manager for all global-listed property strategies in 2008 and held that role through 2017 when he became an advisor to EII. He rejoined the firm on a full-time basis in 2019 and worked closely with other portfolio managers and EII’s investment committee to shape portfolio strategy and construction. From 1992 until 1996, he served as a Vice-President of Investments for Mutual of America Capital Management Corp., based in New York, where he was responsible for debt and equity real estate investments, venture capital, and the firm’s inaugural entrance into the equity REIT market.

Mr. Otero is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame with an MBA (1992) and a BBA (1989) in Finance.

Sales & DIstribution

Charles A. Ragauss, CFA

Portfolio Manager for HAUS
Portfolio Manager, Toroso Investments, LLC

Mr. Ragauss serves as Portfolio Manager of the Adviser, having joined the Adviser in September 2020.

Mr. Ragauss previously served as Chief Operating Officer and in other roles at CSatInvestment Advisory, L.P., doing business as Exponential ETFs from April 2016 to September 2020. Previously, Mr. Ragauss was Assistant Vice President at Huntington National Bank (“Huntington”), where he was Product Manager for the Huntington Funds and Huntington Strategy Shares ETFs, a combined fund complex of almost $4 billion in assets under management. At Huntington, he led ETF development bringing to market some of the first actively managed ETFs. Mr. Ragauss joined Huntington in 2010.

Mr. Ragauss attended Grand Valley State University where he received his Bachelor of Business Administration in Finance and International Business, as well as a minor in French.

He is a member of both the National and West Michigan CFA societies and holds the CFA designation.

Advisory Board

Christopher H. Volk

President & Chief Executive Officer, STORE Capital Corporation

Christopher H. Volk served as the founding President and Chief Executive Officer of STORE Capital Corporation (NYSE: STOR), which he guided from its May 2011 inception through 2021. For 35 years, he has been engaged in structuring, managing and financing commercial real estate companies, introducing three successful REITs to the public markets, two of which he co-founded.  Collectively, those companies have supplied over $20 billion in financing to a wide array of industries, including the chain restaurants, education, fitness, and many others. Volk is known within the industry for his many innovations, including the largest ever partnership rollup into a public REIT (1994), the first ever net lease corporate investment-grade unsecured debt issuance (1995) and the creation of the first US real estate master trust financing conduit (2005).  He was a 2019 regional winner of EY’s Entrepreneur of The Year® award.

Mr. Volk is a sought-after media source and an author of numerous articles on real estate finance and financial statement analysis. In 1999, he devised the V-Formula, a simplified equation for evaluating business models that he would later expand on and apply in his business leadership activities.  The formula is the centerpiece in a forthcoming book entitled “The Value Equation: A Business Guide to Wealth Creation for Entrepreneurs, Leaders and Investors,” which is scheduled to be released by Wiley Publishing in May 2022.

 

Mr. Volk is a visiting professor to Cornell University, a frequent university lecturer and serves on multiple charity boards.  He resides with his wife in Paradise Valley Arizona and Huntsville, Alabama. He received a Bachelor of Arts from Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia and a Master of Business Administration from Georgia State University.

JOHN W. GUINEE III

Managing Director, Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc.

John W. Guinee III is currently a board member of Plymouth Industrial REIT (Ticker:  PLYM) and an advisory board member of Artemis Real Estate Partners.  Formerly, Guinee was a Managing Director and member of the REIT equity research team of Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc. He joined the research team in connection with its acquisition of Legg Mason’s capital markets group in December of 2005. Prior to that, Guinee was Executive Vice President and Chief Investment Officer of Duke Realty, an $8 billion company that was the largest office and industrial REIT in the United States at that time. He was responsible for leading the company’s acquisition and disposition efforts.

From 1997 through 2001, Guinee was an EVP and the Chief Investment Officer of Charles E. Smith Residential Realty. The multifamily REIT was sold to Archstone for $3.6 billion in May 2001. From 1985 through 1997, Guinee was a Managing Director with LaSalle Advisors/Alex. Brown Kleinwort Benson Realty Advisors Corp. prior to a merger. During the 12-year period, he served as the Head of the Investment department, Co-Head of the Asset Management department and led the REIT securities private placement effort. Additional responsibilities at LaSalle Advisors included portfolio management, capital raising and investor relations. From 1982 through 1985, Guinee was a Development Manager with Gerald D. Hines Interests in San Francisco. He has a Master of Business Administration from the University of Virginia Darden School of Business and a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from the University of Virginia.

Richard Adler

Chair, Investment Committee

Richard Adler was a co-founder and former Managing Director of EII Capital Management, an investment advisory firm for over 38 years managing REIT portfolios beginning in 1986.  EII was one of the pioneers of the Modern REIT Era that began with institutional investing into REITs in the early 1990’s. After over a decade focusing on domestic REITs, EII diversified into global REITs in the early 2000’s with offices in New York, Singapore, Amsterdam, and Munich.  Richard organized and chaired the EII Realty Securities Trust which offered institutional mutual funds for US, International, and Global REITs.  Richard’s background in overall capital markets includes investment management of fixed income securities, general equities, and derivatives in addition to REITs.  He is a member of the NAREIT’s Real Estate Investment Advisory Council where he authored a study of REIT volatility.  He has been a trustee of World Learning where he has served as Chair of the Investment Committee overseeing their endowment.  Prior to founding EII he was Vice President of International Securities Sales at Goldman Sachs, where he acted as liaison between its research department and foreign investors. Richard earned a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Yale University in 1968. He received a Master of Business Administration in 1973 from Harvard Business School, where he was a Baker Scholar. He is also a former officer in the United States Navy.

© ARMADA ETF ADVISORS 2024

All rights reserved.

Contact us

contact@armadaetfs.com
(800) 693-8288

Stay Informed

Please enable JavaScript in your browser to complete this form.
Investors should consider the investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses carefully before investing. For a prospectus or summary prospectus with this and other information about the Fund, please call (800) 693-8288 or visit our website at www.armadaetfs.com. Read the prospectus or summary prospectus carefully before investing.

Investments involve risk. Principal loss is possible. Unlike mutual funds, ETFs may trade at a premium or discount to their net asset value. Brokerage commissions may apply and would reduce returns. The fund is new and has limited operating history to judge.

Fund Risks: The funds are classified as non-diversified investment companies. The Funds may invest a greater portion of their assets in the securities of a single issuer or a smaller number of issuers than if they were diversified funds. To the extent the Funds invest in other funds, a shareholder will bear two layers of asset-based expenses, which could reduce returns when compared to a direct investment the underlying funds.

The performance data quoted represents past performance. Past performance does not guarantee future results. The investment return and principal value of an investment will fluctuate so that an investor’s shares, when sold or redeemed, may be worth more or less than their original cost and current performance may be lower or higher than the performance quoted. Performance current to the most recent month-end can be obtained by calling (800) 693-8288.

To view the ETF’s holdings and standardized performance, click here.

References to other securities is not an offer to buy or sell.

Dividends are not guaranteed, and the dividend yield may fluctuate.

Through its investments in REITs, the Fund is subject to the risks of investing in the real estate market, including decreases in property revenues, increases in interest rates, increases in property taxes and operating expenses, legal and regulatory changes, a lack of credit or capital, defaults by borrowers or tenants, environmental problems, and natural disasters. The Fund may invest in derivatives, which are often more volatile than other investments and may magnify the Fund’s gains or losses.

The Fund invests in residential mortgage backed securities (RMBS), which are subject to the risks generally associated with fixed-income securities and mortgage-backed securities. Delinquencies and defaults by borrowers in payments on the underlying mortgages, and the related losses, are affected by general economic conditions, the borrower’s equity in the mortgaged property, and the borrower’s financial circumstances.

The Fund may invest in debt securities which are subject to the risks of an issuer’s inability to meet its obligations under the security; failure of an issuer or borrower to pay principal and interest when due; and interest rate changes affect the prices of fixed income securities. In addition, an increase in prevailing interest rates typically causes the value of existing fixed income securities to fall and often has a greater impact on longer duration and/or higher quality fixed income securities.
Unlike typical exchange-traded funds, there are no indexes that the Funds attempt to track or replicate. Thus, the ability of the Funds to achieve its objectives will depend on the effectiveness of the portfolio manager. In general, ETFs can be tax efficient. ETFs are subject to capital gains tax and taxation of dividend income. However, ETFs are structured in such a manner that taxes are generally minimized for the holder of the ETF. An ETF manager accommodates investment inflows and outflows by creating or redeeming “creation units,” which are baskets of assets. As a result, the investor usually is not exposed to capital gains on any individual security in the underlying portfolio. However, capital gains tax may be incurred by the investor after the ETF is sold.

Investment Objective: Residential REIT ETF (HAUS) seeks total return.

Investment Objective: Intelligent Real Estate ETF (REAI) seeks total return.

Glossary Terms

Basis Point (BPS): A basis point is a common unit of measure for interest rates and other percentages in finance. Basis points are typically expressed with the abbreviations bp, bps, or bips. One basis point is equal to 1/100th of 1%, or 0.01%.

Beta: Beta is a measure of a stock’s volatility in relation to the overall market. 

Book Value: Book value is equal to the cost of carrying an asset on a company’s balance sheet, and firms calculate it netting the asset against its accumulated depreciation.

Cap Rates: The capitalization rate (also known as cap rate) is used in commercial real estate to indicate the expected rate of return on an investment property.

Dow Jones: A stock market index that tracks 30 large, publicly-owned blue-chip companies trading on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and Nasdaq.

Dow Jones US Real Estate Index: This index is designed to track the performance of real estate investment trusts (REITs) and other companies that invest directly or indirectly in real estate through development, management, or ownership, including property agencies.

Earnings Per Share (EPS): Earnings per share (EPS) is calculated as a company’s profit divided by the outstanding shares of its common stock. The resulting number serves as an indicator of a company’s profitability.

EBITDA: Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization.

Funds From Operation (FFO): The most commonly accepted and reported measure of REIT operating performance. Equal to a REIT’s net income, excluding gains or losses from sales of property and adding back real estate depreciation.

Gated: The practice of temporarily blocking withdrawals from an investment fund

Loan-to-Value: The loan-to-value (LTV) ratio is an assessment of lending risk that financial institutions and other lenders examine before approving a mortgage.

Margin Call: A broker’s demand that an investor deposit more cash or securities into a margin account to cover potential losses. 

NARIET: National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts

Nasdaq 100: The 100 largest, most actively traded U.S companies listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange. Includes sectors such as health care, retail, industrial, technology, biotechnology and others. Does not include financial sectors.

Net Asset Value (NAV): The “market value” of all a company’s assets, including but not limited to its properties, after subtracting the “market value” of all its liabilities and obligations.

NOI: Net operating income (NOI) is a calculation used to measure the profitability of income-generating real estate investments. NOI equals all revenue from the property, minus all reasonably necessary operating expenses.

Real Estate Select Sector SPDR ETF Index: The Real Estate Index contains companies from Real Estate Management & Development and REITs, excluding Mortgage REITs. Components include American Tower, Crown Castle, ProLogis and Equinix.

REIT: A REIT (Real Estate Investment Trust) is a company that owns, operates or finances income-producing real estate.

S&P 500: A market-capitalization-weighted index of 500 leading publicly traded companies in the U.S.

S&P Mid Cap 400: The S&P Mid Cap 400 is a benchmark index comprised of 400 companies that broadly represent companies with midrange market capitalization between $3.6 billion and $13.1 billion.

SEC 30-Day Yield:  The yield is calculated with a standardized formula and represents net investment income earned by a fund over a 30-day period, expressed as an annual percentage rate based on the fund’s share price.

Smart beta: The goal of smart beta is to obtain alpha, lower risk, or increase diversification at a cost lower than traditional active management and marginally higher than straight index investing.

Distributed by Foreside Fund Services, LLC.
Launch & Structure Partner: Tidal ETF Services.

Foreside, Tidal, and Armada are not affiliated.