Ninepoint Partners proposes fixed administration fee and management fee cuts on certain funds

Ninepoint Partners wants to stop charging its funds for operating expenses as they are incurred and replace them with a fixed administration fee, a change the Toronto manager says would make each fund's management expense ratio more predictable. The firm, which reports roughly $8 billion in assets under management and institutional contracts, announced the proposal on Sept. 28, covering every series of the funds named in an appendix to the release and requiring securityholder approval.

Approved, the fixed fee would take effect on or about Jan. 1, 2027, at which point Ninepoint, as manager, would pay each fund's operating expenses, certain excluded items aside, in exchange for the fixed administration fee. The firm also intends to reduce management fees on certain funds effective the same date, though the rates sit in a schedule the release references but does not reproduce in the portion reviewed, so the size of the cuts is not established here. Securityholders have roughly a month to work through the documents: proxy materials and notices are expected on or about Oct. 19, 2026, and special meetings are set for on or about Nov. 19, with each fund voting separately; certain series are not entitled to vote and receive notice only, and because the votes are separate, approval may not come uniformly across the list. Ninepoint's Independent Review Committee reviewed the proposal for potential conflict-of-interest matters and recommended it, having determined that it would achieve a fair and reasonable result for each fund, according to the release.

Ninepoint describes the resulting MER as the management fee plus the fixed administration fee, plus certain other expenses not included in the fixed fee, plus applicable taxes, a composition that moves the volatile part of fund costs onto the manager's side of the ledger and gives securityholders a stated ceiling against future operating-expense increases. Should actual expenses run below the fixed fee, the difference likely accrues to Ninepoint; should they run above it, Ninepoint absorbs the overage. That transfer of cost variance is why the conflict review carries weight: the same firm sets the fixed administration fee, sets the management fee, and now pays the expenses underneath both.

Whether the reduced management fees offset the new fixed administration fee is not stated in the portion of the release reviewed, which leaves the net effect on any given series' MER open until securityholders see the schedule. The dates, unlike the numbers, are firm enough to plan around: materials on or about Oct. 19, votes on Nov. 19, implementation targeted for on or about Jan. 1, 2027, all of it conditional on holders approving.