Hennessy has been raising the fee since they acquired the fund.
They then introduced an 'institutional' share class with a $250,000 minimum - with a lower fee than the (original, now called) 'investor' class, and in a very! shareholder-unfriendly manner - did
not place the original investors in the 'institutional' class.
Aside - the current institutional GASFX ER is not that different from what the original ER had been,
prior to Hennessy acquisition.
Other funds - can't recall any specifically at the moment - have given the original shareholders - this "grandfather" benefit and lower expense ratio.
I currently have gains on the fund, that prevent me from liquidating the fund without paying the cap gains tax. If I could sell without paying the C/G tax, I would sell it immediately.
FWIW (and too late for my "old money") you can duplicate the exposure of the fund, through a mix of MLP and Utility ETFs. The expense ratio would be, in aggregate, MUCH lower than GASFX, and it would be more tax efficient.
Below - using the wonderful PortfolioVisualizer.com, are a couple of examples
Match GASFX with MLPX + VPU:
http://tinyurl.com/GASFX-matchBacktest Match of 35% MLPX + 65% VPU, with Annual[*] Rebalancing:
http://tinyurl.com/GASFX-backtest[*] Other rebalancing options are available. See menu at PortfolioVisualizer, linked above.
Since
http://www.etf.com/VPU has ER of
10 bps
http://www.etf.com/MLPX has ER of 45 bps
the blend has ER of about 22 bps, which is 79 bps less than the larded up GASFX Investor class.
