I deal with funds a lot and this is likely very misleading. Let me try to shed a light on it.
Outperformance "Based on Class A shares at net asset value as compared to each fund's primary benchmark* over its lifetime through 12/31/16." has four catches at once!
It probably refers to "share classes for rich people with lower expense ratios and no sales charge". A quick Google search reveals that you need $1mm for that!
"Primary benchmark" may be a manipulatively chosen index that the fund does not entirely invest in. E.g. if they chose S&P500, but also purchased stocks not in the S&P500 but from another index. Of course they don't choose the other index for comparison, even if it would have performed better. It also might merely be the average of actively managed funds (see below), which is obviously not good for comparison!!
"Through 12/31/16" could mean that actively managed funds recently suffered in comparison to their indexes, because funds managers believed stocks to be too overvalued.
Besides, they only mention "18 equity funds", yet they offer more funds, which have less than stellar performance, apparently:
"American Funds equity-focused funds have beaten their Lipper peer indexes in 93% of 10-year periods and 98% of 20-year periods. Fixed income funds have beaten their Lipper indexes in 80% of 10-year periods and 80% of 20-year periods. Based on Class F-2 share results for rolling periods through December 31, 2016. Periods covered are the shorter of the fund’s lifetime or since the comparable Lipper index inception date (except Capital Income Builder and SMALLCAP World Fund, for which the Lipper average was used)."
Again, lots of catches and no real information.
*Besides, the Lipper Peer Indexes compare the fund to the average of actively managed funds, not to the actual stock market indexes!!!
So really this is just a blog post full of half-truths (they didn't technically lie LOL!) to make themselves look better.
I am exclusively invested in actively managed funds, but only because I get the aforementioned special share classes and pick the very best of thousands of funds from many different fund companies.