Putnam Investments has cut expense ratios for its absolute return mutual funds by as much as 54 percent. The four funds, launched in January 2009, currently have $2.4 billion of assets. [SEC filing]

"Although I am pleased with the $2.6 billion in assets since our launch, we expect the numbers to increase significantly, because of the broad application of our suite of Putnam Absolute Return Funds," said Putnam CEO Bob Reynolds in a press release on Monday.

The expense reduction stemmed from advisor feedback and "investor needs around inflation and volatility," he said.

"We decided to take a fresh look at the pricing of the Absolute Return Funds and have determined that a reduction in expenses better aligns them to compete aggressively across the marketplace, and helps to further their use as core investments for many different types of investment portfolios across all time horizons," Reynolds said.

The change took effect November 1.

Because the absolute return products are among the underlying investments in Putnam's RetirementReady Funds, the expense ratios for the target-date and lifecycle retirement offerings have gone down by as much as 24 percent, company officials said. 

Stay ahead of the news ... Sign up for our email alerts now
CLICK HERE