After the big build up … after compiling one of the strongest executive line-ups in the history of the exchange-traded fund (ETF) industry … after stacking their board with famous professors, hedge fund legends and assorted scions of the finance industry's royal class … after seeing their stock rise 9,200 percent (that's not a typo) … WisdomTree Investments finally pulled back the curtain on their secret plans to help investors beat the market and revealed … dividends???

The little ETF company with big plans filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) earlier this week for the right to launch 20 dividend-screened ETFs, covering virtually every major region and style segment of the market. The filings feature six domestic funds and fourteen international funds:

Domestic Funds

WisdomTree Total Dividend Fund
WisdomTree High-Yielding Equity Fund
WisdomTree LargeCap Dividend Fund
WisdomTree Dividend Top 100 Fund
WisdomTree MidCap Dividend Fund
WisdomTree SmallCap Dividend Fund

International Funds

WisdomTree DIEFA Fund (International, ex-U.S.)
WisdomTree DIEFA High-Yielding Equity Fund (International, ex-U.S.)
WisdomTree Europe Total Dividend Fund
WisdomTree Europe High-Yielding Equity Fund
WisdomTree Europe SmallCap Dividend Fund
WisdomTree Japan Total Dividend Fund
WisdomTree Japan High-Yielding Equity Fund
WisdomTree Japan SmallCap Dividend Fund
WisdomTree DIPR Fund (Asia)
WisdomTree DIPR High-Yielding Equity Fund (Asia)
WisdomTree International LargeCap Dividend Fund
WisdomTree International Dividend Top 100 Fund
WisdomTree International MidCap Dividend Fund
WisdomTree International SmallCap Dividend Fund

A Little History

WisdomTree burst onto the scene in 2004 when a group led by hedge fund legend Michael Steinhardt (and including such luminary finance names as Stocks in the Long Run author Jeremy Siegel) executed a reverse merger with a shell company to form the publicly traded Index Development Partners (ticker: WSDT.pk).  The stock shot up 20-fold as the group announced plans to create and launch a number of ETFs, which they said would beat the market by a few percent a year.

They just wouldn't say how.  Their PR team - at the direction of the company - granted just one interview with a reporter, and even that barely touched on the eventual strategy.

In the vacuum, expectations began to build.  Over the course of a year, the firm brought in a series of A-list executives: Frank Salerno, former COO of Merrill Lynch, Ray DeAngelo, head of sales and marketing for iShares, Richard Morris, chief legal counsel for Barclays.  Surely, people thought, these people wouldn't be signing on unless WisdomTree had found something unique … something incredible … some new insight into how to trounce the major global markets.  The firm kept silent even as their stock rose from $0.04/share to $3.70/share.  (Read more about the WisdomTree's history here and here.)

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