Company: NPFD
Filing Date: 2025-10-03
Form Type: N-CSR
Source: 0001193125-25-230111
Chunk: 158

Company: Nuveen Variable Rate Preferred & Income Fund
Filing Date: 2025-10-03
Form: N-CSR
Chunk 158
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 Board may be satisfied with a fund’s performance notwithstanding that its performance may be below that of its benchmark and/or peer group for certain periods. With respect to any funds for which the Board has identified performance issues, the Board seeks to monitor such funds more closely until performance improves, discuss with the Adviser the reasons for such results, consider whether any steps are necessary or appropriate to address such issues, discuss and evaluate the potential consequences of such steps and review the results of any steps undertaken. The performance determinations with respect to each Fund are summarized below:

156

C. Fees, Expenses and Profitability

| 1. | Fees and Expenses |

As part of the annual review, the Board Members considered, among other things, the management fee schedules for the respective Fund. In addition to the management fee arrangements, the Board Members considered a Fund’s operating expense ratio as it more directly reflected a shareholder’s total costs in investing in the respective Fund. In its review, the Board considered that the management fees of the Funds were generally comprised of two components, a fund-level component and a complex-level component, each with its own breakpoint schedule, subject to certain exceptions. The Board considered that in 2024, the Board approved a revised complex-wide breakpoint schedule which simplified and reduced the complex-level fee rates at various thresholds and expanded the eligible funds whose assets would be included in calculating the complex-level fee, effective May 1, 2024. The Board considered that the complex-level component is intended to be an efficient mechanism designed to help share cost efficiencies with shareholders as the complex-wide assets grow. The Board also considered comparative fee and expense information prepared by an independent third-party provider of fund data. More specifically, the Board Members generally reviewed, among other things, each Fund’s management fee rates and net total expense ratio in relation to similar data for a comparable universe of peers (the “Expense Universe”). In their review, the Board Members considered, in particular, each fund with a net total expense ratio (based on common assets and excluding investment-related costs such as the costs of leverage and taxes) meeting certain expense screening criteria adopted by the Board when compared to its Expense Universe and management’s commentary as to the factors contributing to each such fund’s relative net total expense ratio. The Board also considered, in relevant part, a fund’s management fee in light of its performance history with particular focus on any fund identified as having a higher management fee and/or expense ratio compared to peers coupled with experiencing a period of challenged performance. In their review, the Board Members considered the