Fund sales pick up in December: IFIC

Money market funds helped drive overall December fund sales to between $2.8 billion and $3.3 billion, according to preliminary estimates by IFIC.

“December sales helped cap a noteworthy year for the fund industry, with total long-term fund sales estimated to be the highest since 1998 and money market sales ending the year in positive territory for the first time since 2001,” said Pat Dunwoody, vice-president of member services and communications with IFIC.

IFIC also estimates that net assets of the mutual fund industry at the end of December will be in the range of $694 billion to $699 billion, up approximately 0.16% from last month’s total of $696.2 billion.

But tough market conditions affected some individual company numbers.

Mackenzie announced gross mutual fund sales of $593.1 million, but redemptions trimmed net new money to -$65.6 million. Assets under management fell by 0.5% on a year-over-year basis, to $61.3 billion.

Long-term funds saw net redemptions of $136.1 million, while money market funds saw a net increase of $70.5 million.

AGF Management Limited announced $3.7 million in net December sales for long-term funds but had -$4.5 million in net sales for money market funds.

Investors Group boosted its AUM by 3.4%, from $58.2 billion to $60.2 billion. The firm posted $22.6 million in net new money for long term funds and $45.1 million for money markets.

CI Financial announced full-year net sales of $2.1 billion, with total fee-earning assets growing 13% to $103.8 billion. For the month of December, CI pulled in $144 million in new long term fund sales, with an additional $104 million in net new sales in money market funds.

RBC Asset Management managed to pull in $113 million in net new cash for its long term funds and posted a whopping $1.3 billion in net sales for money market funds.

Full-year net sales totaled $8.9 billion, with $5.7 billion going into long-term funds and $3.2 billion into money market funds. Assets under management increased by $10.4 billion or 14%.

Filed by Steven Lamb , Advisor.ca, steven.lamb@advisor.rogers.com