CLASS A SHARES DISTRIBUTION PLAN
PIONEER BOND FUND
CLASS A SHARES DISTRIBUTION PLAN, dated as of May 17, 1997, amended as
of June 6, 2000, of PIONEER BOND FUND, a Delaware business trust (the "Fund")
WITNESSETH
WHEREAS, the Fund is engaged in business as an open-end management
investment company and is registered under the Investment Company Act of 1940,
as amended (collectively with the rules and regulations promulgated thereunder,
the "1940 Act");
WHEREAS, the Fund intends to distribute shares of beneficial interest
(the "Class A Shares") in accordance with Rule 12b-l promulgated by the
Securities and Exchange Commission under the 1940 Act ("Rule 12b- 1"), and
desires to adopt this Class A distribution plan (the "Class A Plan") as a plan
of distribution pursuant to such Rule;
WHEREAS, the Fund desires that Pioneer Funds Distributor, Inc., a
Massachusetts corporation ("PFD"), provide certain distribution services for the
Fund's Class A Shares in connection with the Class A Plan;
WHEREAS, the Fund has entered into an underwriting agreement with PFD,
whereby PFD provides facilities and personnel and renders services to the Fund
in connection with the offering and distribution of Class A Shares (the
"Underwriting Agreement");
WHEREAS, the Fund also recognizes and agrees that (a) PFD may retain
the services of firms or individuals to act as dealers or wholesalers
(collectively, the "Dealers") of the Class A Shares in connection with the
offering of Class A Shares, (b) PFD may compensate any Dealer that sells Class A
Shares in the manner and at the rate or rates to be set forth in an agreement
between PFD and such Dealer and (c) PFD may make such payments to the Dealers
for distribution services out of the fee paid to PFD hereunder, any deferred
sales charges imposed by PFD in connection with the repurchase of Class A
Shares, its profits or any other source available to it;
WHEREAS, the Fund recognizes and agrees that PFD may impose certain
deferred sales charges in connection with the repurchase of Class A Shares by
the Fund, and PFD may retain (or receive from the Fund, as the case may be) all
such deferred sales charges; and
WHEREAS, the Board of Trustees of the Fund, in considering whether the
Fund should adopt and implement this Class A Plan, has evaluated such
information as it deemed necessary to an informed determination whether this
Class A Plan should be adopted and implemented and has considered such pertinent
factors as it deemed necessary to form the basis for a decision to use assets of
the Fund for such purposes, and has determined that there is a reasonable
likelihood that the adoption and implementation of this Class A Plan will
benefit the Fund and its Class A shareholders;
NOW, THEREFORE, the Board of Trustees of the Fund hereby adopts this
Class A Plan for the Fund as a plan of distribution of Class A Shares in
accordance with Rule 12b-l, on the following terms and conditions:
1. The Fund may expend pursuant to this Class A Plan amounts not to exceed 0.25%
of the average daily net assets attributable to Class A Shares of the Fund per
annum.
2. Subject to the limit in paragraph 1, the Fund shall reimburse PFD for amounts
expended by PFD to finance any activity which is primarily intended to result in
the sale of Class A Shares of the Fund or the provision of services to Class A
shareholders of the Fund, including but not limited to commissions or other
payments to Dealers and salaries and other expenses of PFD relating to selling
or servicing efforts, PROVIDED, that the Board of Trustees of the Fund shall
approve categories of expenses for which reimbursement shall be made pursuant to
this paragraph 2 and, without limiting the generality of the foregoing, the
initial categories of such expenses shall be (i) a service fee to be paid to
qualified broker-dealers in an amount not to exceed 0.25% per annum of each
Portfolio's daily net assets attributable to Class A Shares; (ii) reimbursement
to PFD for its expenditures for broker-dealer commissions and employee
compensation on certain sales of the Fund's Class A Shares with no initial sales
charge; and (iii) reimbursement to PFD for expenses incurred in providing
services to Class A shareholders and supporting broker-dealers and other
organizations, such as banks and trust companies, in their efforts to provide
such services (any addition of such categories shall be subject to the approval
of the Qualified Trustees, as defined below, of the Fund). Such reimbursement
shall be paid ten (10) days after the end of the month or quarter, as the case
may be, in which such expenses are incurred. The Fund acknowledges that PFD will
charge an initial sales load or a contingent sales load in connection with
certain sales of Class A Shares of the Fund and that PFD will reallow to Dealers
all or a portion of such sales loads, as described in the Fund's Prospectus from
time to time. Nothing contained herein is intended to have any effect whatsoever
on PFD's ability to charge any such sales loads or to reallow all or any portion
thereof to Dealers.
3. The Fund understands that agreements between PFD and Dealers may provide for
payment of fees to Dealers in connection with the sale of Class A Shares and the
provision of services to Class A shareholders of the Fund. Nothing in this Class
A Plan shall be construed as requiring the Fund to make any payment to any
Dealer or to have any obligations to any Dealer in connection with services as a
dealer of the Class A Shares. PFD shall agree and undertake that any agreement
entered into between PFD and any Dealer shall provide that such Dealer shall
look solely to PFD for compensation for its services thereunder and that in no
event shall such Dealer seek any payment from the Fund.
4. Nothing herein contained shall be deemed to require the Fund to take any
action contrary to its Agreement and Declaration of Trust or By-Laws or any
applicable statutory or regulatory requirement to which it is subject or by
which it is bound, or to relieve or deprive the Fund's Board of Trustees of the
responsibility for and control of the conduct of the affairs of the Fund.
5. This Class A Plan shall become effective upon approval by (i) a "majority of
the outstanding voting securities" of Class A of the Fund, (ii) a vote of the
Board of Trustees, and (iii) a vote of a majority of the Trustees who are not
"interested persons" of the Fund and who have no direct or indirect financial
interest in the operation of the Class A Plan or in any agreement related to the
Class A Plan (the "Qualified Trustee"), such votes with respect to (ii) and
(iii) above to be cast in person at a meeting called for the purpose of voting
on this Class A Plan.
6. This Class A Plan will remain in effect indefinitely, provided that such
continuance is "specifically approved at least annually" by a vote of both a
majority of the Trustees of the Fund and a majority of the Qualified Trustees.
If such annual approval is not obtained, this Class A Plan shall expire on May
17, 2000. This Class A Plan shall automatically terminate upon assignment. In
the event of termination or non-continuance of this Class A Plan, the Fund has
twelve months to reimburse any expense which it incurs prior to such termination
or non-continuance, provided that payments by the Fund during such twelve-month
period shall not exceed 0.25% of the Trust's average daily net assets
attributable to Class A Shares during such period.
7. This Class A Plan may be amended at any time by the Board of Trustees,
PROVIDED that this Class A Plan may not be amended to increase materially the
limitation on the annual percentage of average net assets which may be expended
hereunder without the approval of holders of a "majority of the outstanding
voting securities" of Class A of the Fund and may not be materially amended in
any case without a vote of a majority of both the Trustees and the Qualified
Trustees. Any amendment of this Class A Plan to increase or modify the expense
categories initially designated by the Trustees in paragraph 2 above shall only
require approval of a majority of the Trustees and the Qualified Trustees if
such amendment does not include an increase in the expense limitation set forth
in paragraph 1 above. This Class A Plan may be terminated at any time by a vote
of a majority of the Qualified Trustees or by a vote of the holders of a
"majority of the outstanding voting securities" of the Fund.
8. In the event of termination or expiration of this Class A Plan, the Fund may
nevertheless, within twelve months of such termination or expiration reimburse
any expense which it incurs prior to such termination or expiration, provided
that payments by the Fund during such twelve-month period shall not exceed 0.25%
of the Fund's average daily net assets attributable to Class A Shares during
such period and provided further that such payments are specifically approved by
the Board of Trustees, including a majority of the Qualified Trustees.
9. The Fund and PFD shall provide to the Fund's Board of Trustees, and the Board
of Trustees shall review, at least quarterly, a written report of the amounts
expended under this Class A Plan and the purposes for which such expenditures
were made.
10. While this Class A Plan is in effect, the selection and nomination of
Qualified Trustees shall be committed to the discretion of the Trustees who are
not "interested persons" of the Fund.
11. For the purposes of this Class A Plan, the terms "interested persons,"
"majority of the outstanding voting securities" and "specifically approved at
least annually" are used as defined in the 1940 Act.
12. The Fund shall preserve copies of this Class A Plan, and each agreement
related hereto and each report referred to in paragraph 9 hereof (collectively,
the "Records"), for a period of not less than six (6) years from the end of the
fiscal year in which such Records were made and, for a period of two (2) years,
each of such Records shall be kept in an easily accessible place.
13. This Class A Plan shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the
laws of The Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the applicable provisions of the
1940 Act.
14. If any provision of this Class A Plan shall be held or made invalid by a
court decision, statute, rule or otherwise, the remainder of the Plan shall not
be affected thereby.