ProShare Advisors LLC

ProShare Advisors is an investment management company based out of Bethesda, Maryland. The company was established by cofounders Michael Lynn Sapir and Louis Mark Mayberg and launched its line of ETFs, the ProShares ETFs, in 2006 and since then has grown to become the largest provider of alternative ETFs in the United States. ProShare Advisors invests in a variety of public equity markets, emphasizing its asset allocations in the information technology sector, which alone makes up almost a quarter of its total asset allocations, and also invests in the health care, finance, consumer discretionary, consumer staples, industrials, and energy sectors, among others to a lesser degree, in order of decreasing allocation. The company currently has 113 employees including 40 investment professionals. ProShare Advisors is owned by its employees with the majority shares held by Michael Lynn Sapir, the current CEO of the firm, and Louis Mark Mayberg, the current President of the firm, with the remaining ownership split amongst William Edward Seale, the Chief Economist, Dorot, the Sapir Family Trust, and various key executives. ProShare Advisors currently holds over $23 billion in total assets under management spread across 164 accounts, all of which are discretionary. Although its total number of accounts has been rising in recent years, growing from just over 100 five years ago to its current amount, its total assets under management, although it has grown by over $1 billion from 2010, has been volatile, decreasing to as low as $19.3 billion in 2013 and increasing to as high as $28.9 billion back in 2011. The company provides its services mainly to investment companies, which make up almost two thirds of its entire client base, and also caters to other clients, which makes up the remaining one third of its clientele. ProShare Advisors’s line of ETFs currently includes its Ultra Nasdaq Biotechnology, UltraPro QQQ, Ultra Health Care, and UltraPro S&P 500 offerings, among many others.