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Funds sold through fee-only advisors

Alban
in Fund Discussions
I have been trying to identify mutual fund share classes that are sold through fee-only advisors, i.e., advisors that charge clients a fee that is a percentage of the assets that they manage for their clients. It appears that F shares are primarily designed for that purpose, but I can only find a small number of them from a small number of fund families

Are there other share classes that are sold through fee-only advisors and is there an easy way to identify them? Based on recent articles on the business press it appears that fee-only advisors are taking business away from the typical brokers/advisors that get paid based on fund loads. So, I am surprised that there appears no easy way to identify the fund share classes sold through fee-only advisors.

Any thoughts/comments are highly appreciated.

Alban

Comments

  • MOZART325
    Dimensional Funds are mainly sold by fee only advisors, but some of their funds may also be available in 401K plans.
  • Old_JoeOld_Joe
    BobC, a very knowledgeable and helpful fee-only adviser who stops by here from time-to-time might well be an excellent source of knowledge in this particular area. If you send him a private message it should attract his attention the next time he visits.
  • msf
    IMHO, trying to infer anything from a class name other than perhaps A, B, C, I, and Investor is an exercise in futility, since there's no standardization.

    For example, Federated funds have classes A, B, C, F, R, and Institutional (IS). A,B, C, and F shares are all available to individuals directly or through brokers. See, e.g. this prospectus for Federated Capital Income (CAPAX, CAPBX, CAPCX, CAPFX, CAPRX, CAPSX) - "How is the fund sold?"

    The F shares (at least for this fund) cost a basis point more than the A shares, which are available load-waived - you don't even need to go through an adviser. So these F shares don't seem limited to use by advisers, and they don't even seem to be cost effective.

    These days, many load families (though not American Funds) waive loads if you go through discount brokers. The A shares may have a 12b-1 fee that's higher than the fund's share class (if any) designed for wrap accounts, but the net cost to you is still lower (since you avoid the wrap fee). For example, Templeton Bond Fund A (TPINX) is available load-waived, but carries a 0.25% 12b-1 fee (total ER 0.88%), while the Advisor share class (TGBAX) has no 12b-1 fee (total ER correspondingly lower, at 0.63%).

    Traditionally, load families waived the load on A shares if they were sold in a wrap account. So we've now identified some F shares, ADV shares, and load-waived A shares sold through wrap accounts. I'm sure there's more.

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