Toronto-based Sentry Investments Inc. is reducing the number of series within its mutual fund lineup in an effort to simplify that lineup as well as move ahead with management fee reductions announced earlier in January.

See: Sentry cuts fees to certain series of mutual funds

Investors who currently own funds with a low-load or deferred sales charge (DSC) option within the firm’s Series A and T funds will have their funds reclassified under the newly created Series B and corresponding fixed-rate distribution series. Investors who are being folded into Series B will notice the only change is the new series name. The funds will retain the same attributes and fund codes.

This move would allow the firm to go ahead with formal management fee reductions, which were previously announced, for investors under the front-end load charge option of Series A and T series, according to Sentry’s statement, which was released on Wednesday.

Series P, PF, PT and PFT will be redesignated into the corresponding Series A, F, T and FT of the same fund as those series now have similar preferred pricing features. This change will consist of a switch transaction within the same mutual fund trust or corporate-class structure.

“In order to provide lower prices immediately, we implemented fee rebates for front-end Series A and T investors,” says Kos Lazaridis, vice president, product, Sentry Investments, in the statement. “With our proposed series changes, we will be able to formally reduce those fees while also simplifying our fund series to A, B, F, O and I, along with any corresponding fixed-rate distribution series.”

These series redesignations will not result in a taxable event for investors.

“The redesignation of investors in Sentry’s mutual fund trusts will occur automatically in April upon the expiry of any applicable notice periods, while the redesignation of investors in Sentry’s corporate classes requires securityholder approval,” the announcement states. “In order to seek the necessary approvals to effect these changes in April, Sentry intends to call special meetings of corporate-class securityholders to be held in March.”