Fund sales likely positive in December: IFIC

Mutual fund sales were likely positive in December, despite large sell-offs among some manufacturers, according to preliminary estimates from the Investment Funds Institute of Canada.

IFIC predicts net sales could be as high as $418.8 million, but allows that the industry may have experienced net redemptions of 81.1 million.

“Based on preliminary estimates, December 2009 ended on a positive note. Since the beginning of the year, mutual fund investors have seen their mutual fund account balances increase by $87.4 billion or 17.2% — since the low at the end of February, balances have increased by $117.5 billion,” said Pat Dunwoody, vice-president of member services and communications with IFIC.

“From a sales perspective in 2009, we have seen a complete turnaround of what happened in 2008, flows into long-term funds were close to $17.4 billion, compared to the $14.1 billion that flowed out in 2008,” she said.

Net industry assets at the end of 2009 were between $591.9 billion and $596.9 billion, up approximately 1.30% from November’s total of $586.3 billion.

RBC Asset Management, the country’s largest asset manager, announced net redemptions of $719 million in December, as $1.2 billion in money market redemptions overshadowed $444 million in long-term fund inflows. Assets under management increased by $400 million.

“Investors appear to be moving off the sidelines and taking a ‘back-to-basics’ approach, as they redeploy their money into balanced and risk-adjusted investments,” said Doug Coulter, president of RBC AM.

CI Financial posted net sales of $100 million in December, with $81 million flowing into long-term funds and $19 million in money market funds. For the full year, CI reported net sales of $1.5 billion, while AUM grew by $12.1 billion, or 22.1% year-over-year. The company ended 2009 with $62.7 billion in its investment funds.

Fidelity Investments reported total net inflows of $313 million, with $346 million in net flows to long-term funds.

Investors Group reported preliminary mutual fund net sales of $39.7 million, consisting of 29 million in long-term inflows, and $10.7 million in new money market cash. At year-end, Investors Group had $57.7 billion in AUM, up from $47.5 billion at the end of 2008.

Mackenzie Financial announced total mutual fund redemptions of $88.2 million, with $66.8 million coming out of long-term funds. Total assets under management at the end of December were $63.6 billion, up from $54.7 billion at December 31, 2008.

Long-term fund AUM rose 16.3% year-over-year, to $39.1 billion, while money market AUM declined 29.6% to $1.5 billion.

AGF Management reported $103.4 million in net redemptions in December, with $92.6 million coming out of long-term funds. The company pointed out that $10.3 million of that total was due to institutional rebalancing.

Mutual fund AUM averaged $22.8 billion in December, and the firm ended the year with $45.0 billion in total AUM, an increase of 25.8% from December 31, 2008.

Counsel Portfolio Services the mutual fund division of Investment Planning Counsel, reported preliminary mutual fund sales of $23 million, with $20 million of that coming in long-term funds. At year end, total AUM stood at $2.14 billion, up from $1.74 billion at the end of 2008.

NexGen Financial reported total mutual fund net sales of $23 million boosting total AUM to $506 million at year-end, compared to $286 million at December 31, 2008.

(01/05/10)