Bill Lynch, CFA, is a branch manager for a brokerage firm. He is reviewing a set of slides for a sales presentation that one of his subordinates will deliver next week. In a section that explains the nature of the various fees charged by investment companies, Lynch finds slides that state the following:
Slide 8: Fees charged by investment companies are a trade-off from the investor’s point of view. Lower fees will subtract less from the investor’s rate of return, but higher fees give portfolio managers greater incentives to achieve higher returns.
Slide 12: When choosing between a fund’s share classes, the investor should select the class with the lowest total annual fees.
Should Lynch agree or disagree with the statements on these two slides?
Lynch should disagree with both of these statements. Premiums, loads, and redemption fees are compensation for sales and marketing efforts, but they are not performance incentives for the portfolio managers. Different classes of shares can be structured with different schedules of front-end, back-end, and distribution fees. The optimal choice depends on the investor’s expected holding period and is not necessarily the one with the lowest total annual fees. |