I'm staying with my small position for past 4 years.

Confirming your statement about AF that they're marketing experts. Didn't matter whether the F shares did anything new, they were sold as "new and improved".
I took a quick look at EuroPacific Growth. The first prospectus in which class F shares appear (3/15/2001) shows expenses of 0.46% (management) + 0.25% (12b-1) + 0.21% (other) for a total of 0.92%.
The prospectus from ten years ago (6/1/2006) shows expenses of 0.43% + 0.25% + 0.16% for a total of 0.84%.
The current prospectus (6/1/2016) has class F-1 figures of 0.42% + 0.25% + 0.19% for a total of 0.86%.
It is true that the F (now called F-1) shares tend to run a few basis points higher than class A shares. The difference is entirely in "other expenses", and I've always guessed that's because the share classes hit slightly different target audiences and the servicing costs are slightly different, though not enough to complain about. Maybe expenses have gone up in the past ten years for some other AF funds. Maybe even most of them. But not for my limited sample of 1.

Reduced considerably my multiyear holding in TGBAX (pretty much a scratch trade, made a tiny profit as I recall) and I'm down to a 6K toehold. Holding mainly to keep access to that class of the product for when global/EM bonds return to favour.

Have you guys bailed on Hasenstab? Flat over the past 3 years....
FNMIX has done better. DIBRX has not performed great either.

Ok, guys. Nice to know you're out there. @JohnChisum: PREMX has paid me over $1,300.00 in 2016, in monthly divs. If there is a very small cap gain---as in years past, all well and good. But they've been paying, right along. I'm gonna just call them. gotta run, right now. Thanks.

Have you guys bailed on Hasenstab? Flat over the past 3 years....
FNMIX has done better. DIBRX has not performed great either.

I believe I came across the same situation , as I was looking at last years taxes. I'll take a look & see which fund this happen to & report back.
Derf
P.S. Probably happens more than one would guess.

Thank you, @Derf. The thing is, the footnote I quoted (original post, above) states something. With no rhyme or reason. (Hello, shareholder. Just GUESS why this footnote was necessary, and what caused us to have to include it!)

I believe I came across the same situation , as I was looking at last years taxes. I'll take a look & see which fund this happen to & report back.
Derf
P.S. Probably happens more than one would guess.

I can tell you that when an American Fund rep visited us when the F-class shares were introduced, he said they wanted to penetrate what they saw as a growing RIA landscape, access fee-based accounts (that term is such a crock), with lower-expense options. Unfortunately the expenses for many F-class shares are higher now than they were ten years ago.

I appreciate the responses. Some years ago, I did grab a good profit from PRLAX. So, I was just wondering. I'm down to 8% foreign equities. SFGIX is my only foreign and EM equity fund at the moment, apart from Real Estate. My bonds have been behaving as ballast when I DON'T want them to do that. Double-edged sword. 39% of portf. is in bonds of all sorts, and bonds are lately dragging on my most solid portf. anchors: PRWCX and MAPOX. Some funds will pay monthly dividend overnight: end of the month. Outside retirement tax-advantaged portf, I've been d-c-a-ing into electric utility, PNM. It got hammered today. My teeny-tiny slice in COP shot upward today. Almost back to even-Stephen. I might just hold is for longer, now, with the OPEC and Russia agreement today. Connecticut wrappers? That stuff grows just a few miles south. I'm just inside the Mass. border. :) There's a big difference between the two, too: in Connecticut, there's actual PAVEMENT. ;)

40 years can't be correct!
I'm certain MJG's been touting passive investing right here for 50 years - err seems like it. :)
Let's not put Bogle up on a pedestal. No Saint. None of them are.
Don't know if he owns any vineyards ... but modestly priced Bogle Cabernet Sauvignon I find quite agreeable.

I haven't followed this stick of dynamite (PRLAX) since I took a 30% quick profit April 15.
Nice run-up early in year.
Those kinds of opportunities don't come along often. I couldn't recommend the fund for the average investor. Can double one year and loose 70% the next.
That said, these Latin American funds are very highly cyclical and the up/down cycles tend to persist for a number of years. Today's 7-8% jump in crude is certain to push them up near-term.
EM has been hammered by a number of factors lately - especially strong dollar and speculation that DT will impose trade barriers making it harder for the EMs to export. I think that's a reasonable short term outlook. But I agree with M Möbius that EMs will do relatively well over the next several years. However, I wouldn't invest in a single region.

"Their introduction of F-class shares came about 10 years ago when they realized they were being shut out of many fee-only accounts established by RIAs."
Most load funds enable brokers to sell their funds without loads so long as the brokers collect fees in some other way. Often, funds will simply waive their loads for fee-based (aka "wrap") accounts. This has been going on since the last century, not just the past decade.
American Funds did this until 2002. Read an older prospectus. It says "Investments made by investors in certain qualified fee-based programs ... may also be made with no sales charge and are not subject to a CDSC".
Read a current prospectus: "You may generally open an account and purchase Class F
shares only through fee-based programs of investment dealers .... These intermediaries typically charge ongoing fees for services they provide. Intermediary fees are not paid by the fund and normally range from .75% to 1.50% of assets annually, depending on the services offered."
Pre-2002, post-2002, same intermediaries, same charges by American Funds. Only the letter attached to the shares changed - from A to F.
So it doesn't look introducing F shares changed anything substantial.
I do agree that, to use a word now in vogue, the "optics" changed. American Funds seems to like the unix philosophy of KISS as much as unix zealots. By that I mean they take it to the extreme. (See, e.g. Rob Pike's "Cat -v Considered Harmful", advocating simple separate programs rather than multiple options on a given program.)
American Funds seems to have taken this approach to heart - instead of having class A shares with different load options (beyond breakpoint pricing), it separated out a no load option into a new share class. Instead of having different options for different uses (retirement plans, 529 plans, retail purchases), it has different groups of shares (R shares, 529 shares, letter shares).
Timing suggests that the introduction of the F shares was a response to the Merrill Lynch Rule (1999-2007) facilitating wrap accounts without holding their reps to a fiduciary standard, but that's purely circumstantial and I can't show a direct link.

Hi, Alban. This is not related to your question, but I am wondering what your plan for buying American Funds is. Given the options available to you, such as T. Rowe Price, Vanguard and many other no-load fund companies, I am simply curious why you have selected American Funds. American Funds has for decades been the go-to company for the commission reps and their broker-dealers, paying big bucks to get on the b-d's approved list, where the reps get a larger cut of the commission. They added B and C-class shares with their very expensive fees and back-end loads to further hang on to commission reps. Their introduction of F-class shares came about 10 years ago when they realized they were being shut out of many fee-only accounts established by RIAs. Now, they are coming out with a no-load retail share class, but only after the DOL rule pretty much kills the rollover business of the commission reps. American Funds are a huge marketing machine, very astute about where the future of sales is heading. The addition of no-load products is simply another marketing strategy. They have some great management teams. But they are even better at determining where their next dime of income will originate. Why else would they have 18-20 share classes of the same funds? American Fund is not alone in their marketing history, but no other fund company has managed to create a fund class for every sales opportunity like the folks in Los Angeles.

I don't think this article helps too much, but here's a 2013 article describing Capital Group's reorganization into multiple groups:
http://www.fa-mag.com/news/capital-group-will-restructure-based-on-investment-objectives-13699.html
Ignoring for the moment that little of the verbiage in the article or prospectus is particularly clear, what I would have guessed is: many mutual fund companies have multiple equity teams where each team manages multiple funds. Those teams tend to be theme based, e.g. large cap, small cap, international, etc. While the names of Capital's equity groups don't suggest that, it is at least consistent with the FA article, that talks about organizing these groups around particular investing objectives.
Regarding AF having "now" introduced no-load shares. They've had no-load shares for many years. What changed is that you're now finding a way to purchase them. But no-load R4 and R5 shares for retirement plans have been around for what seems like forever, with R6 and R5E being added more recently. The F share class (renamed F-1 in 2008) has been around for a couple of decades.
You can get F-2, and sometimes even cheaper R5 or R6 shares through HSA accounts. For example, the HSA Authority offers RERFX.

We've had substantial fund investments with American for over thirty years, and have generally been quite satisfied. I knew that Capital Research and Management was their advisory arm, but didn't realize that CR&M had multiple "subadvisors". Like you, I haven't gotten very far finding any detail on that, but "International", "Global", and "World" sure seems a little redundant, to say the least. Maybe they should have "Universal" and "Intergalactic" too.
Why not try a question directly to American Funds and ask them? If nothing else that will give you an idea of how they communicate with customers. While I do all of the account management myself directly using their website, the few times that I've needed to communicate with them I did it through our sales rep. If you get any more info, please let us know.

Each AF manager is responsible for a given 'sleeve' of the portfolio based on their expertise and have the discresion to act independently of the other managers. (I think ... think .... they only really compare notes when there may be the potential for a major overlap in holdings b/c several managers all like the same stock.) But that independent approach is the major 'feature' or 'attraction' of AF's conservative reputation for fund management.
I'm not sure how these 3 firms relate to the overall AF environment, and I'm not sure my comment helps, but hey it works, because I've been a happy AF fundowner for the past 10+ years.

I think it takes about five years to master the technical aspects of investing, assuming one has a good syllabus. The psychology aspect of investing is much harder and may be impossible to fully master. An advisor may or may not be able to help with the psychological challenge - it really depends on the client, the advisor and the relationship between the two.
Nick de Peyster
http://undervaluedstocks.info/

The Poobah speaks, and the earth trembles at his all-knowing, all-seeing, all-thinking ability. I though Mr. Gross had the world's biggest ego a few years ago, but I was wrong. Mr. Gundlach, er...the Poobah is clearly the winner since Gross left PIMCO. Be careful with these self-appointed, celebrity fund managers. Their flame-outs can be fast and hazardous.

Hi expatsp. Philosophical? Probably not that deep. Just a matter of individual preference and/or comfort. Re-balancing index type funds or ETFs has a lot of followers and detractors as does using 'risk adjusted' return managed funds like FPACX (which fwiw I don't own now but did a few years ago). I also question as you do that many managers can consistently utilize and adjust there cash levels to beat index funds, but I do not question my ability to do so. I know I can't.
A few funds I own for the purpose of the manager or management team making asset allocation, buying within a companies capital structure or making cash holding decisions are SFGIX, FMIJX, SGENX, ICMBX, PRWCX. I think the managers of these funds can obtain good "risk adjusted" returns.

FYI: (Click On Article Title At Top Of Google Search)
Perhaps nowhere else in financial markets is speculation on the ultimate success of Trompononics more rampant than in shares of small U.S. stocks.
Small company shares on Friday notch their longest winning streak in 20 years on a shortened Black Friday trading session. The Russell 2000 Index rose 0.4% in in the shortened session to book its 15th advance in row. This streak ties a run last seen in February 1996. The longest ever streak, 21, was hit back in 1988.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.google.com/#q=Unsinkable+Small+Caps:+Russell+2000′s+Winning+Streak+Longest+in+20+Years+wsj