PowerShares plans laddered, investment-grade corporate bond fund

By Toni Weeks

San Luis Obispo, Calif., April 22 - PowerShares Exchange-Traded Fund Trust II announced in an N-1A filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that it will offer a new series, the PowerShares Laddered 0-5 Year Investment Grade Corporate Bond Portfolio.

The fund will seek investment results that generally correspond, before fees and expenses, to the price and yield of its benchmark index, the Nasdaq LadderRite 0-5 Year USD Corporate Bond index.

The fund will normally invest at least 80% of its total assets in U.S. and foreign investment-grade bonds that comprise the index, which measures potential returns of a theoretical portfolio of fixed-income securities with a yield curve based upon remaining effective terms to maturity of five years or less. The index provider uses a laddered approach to select securities, dividing the components into five equally weighted groups with staggered maturity levels in an annual sequential pattern from zero to five years.

To be included in the index, securities must be denominated in U.S. dollars, pay fixed amounts of taxable interest, have an outstanding face value of at least $500 million, have five years or less to maturity and be rated investment grade by Standard & Poor's, Moody's Investors Service or Fitch Ratings.

Peter Hubbard, Philip Fang, Jeffrey W. Kernagis and Richard Ose will be the portfolio managers.

The fund will trade on the Nasdaq exchange. The ticker symbol has not been set.

Management fees and total annual operating expenses have not been determined.

Wheaton, Ill.-based Invesco PowerShares Capital Management LLC will serve as the fund's investment adviser.

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