The folks at Fidelity [profile] are speeding up, by more than a year, a share-class conversion that affects more than 100 of their mutual funds.

Abigail Johnson Fidelity Investments Chief Executive Officer

"We are accelerating the conversion of all remaining Class B Shares to Class A shares in order to fully eliminate the class on July 1, 2016," Fidelity spokeswoman Caroline Garner tells MFWire, pointing to a recent filing and "the industry trend away from Class B shares." (B shares feature back-end loads that trigger when you sell your fund shares, instead of when you buy them.)

Fidelity first closed class B shares to new investments in September 2010.

"The class would have been fully eliminated on all Advisor funds by September 2017 due to the automatic conversion feature," Garner says. "Accelerating the conversion of Class B to Class A to July 1, 2016 will allow shareholders to benefit quicker from Class A's lower 12b-1 fee."

Garner confirms that, as of January 31, 102 Fidelity funds had a combined $446 million in AUM in class B shares. 

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