The board of directors of the almost nine-year-old $46 million Jensen Portfolio is asking shareholders to approve a new 0.10 percent 12b-1 fee and change the fund adviser's mandatory expense reimbursement agreement to a voluntary arrangement.
This request follows the fund's imposition April 30 of a 0.15 percent shareholder servicing fee. The adviser had previously provided shareholder servicing without compensation.
The requested changes are described in the fund's June 5 preliminary proxy statement.
The fund's fee restructuring was deemed necessary because of recent favorable public attention which has boosted fund assets by one-third within the last eight months, said
Val Jensen, president of Jensen Investment Management.
Also, the focused-portfolio fund, which over the last several months has expanded its registration into all 50 states, has recently been added to the mutual fund distribution programs of both TD Waterhouse and Credit Suisse Asset Management, both of New York. The fund adviser is also considering distributing the fund through Charles Schwab & Co. of San Francisco, said Jensen.
"Our objective is to reduce the overall expenses of the fund," Jensen said. The hope is that by making the fund more widely available, assets under management will increase and fund expenses will fall, he said.
