Mutual funds suffered redemptions of between $1.25 billion and $1.75 billion in April, according to preliminary estimates released Tuesday by the Investment Funds Institute of Canada.

IFIC reported that several of the industry’s leading firms were in overall net redemptions for the month. Dynamic Mutual Funds was the top seller with $250 million in overall monthly net sales (including $266 million in long-term sales), followed by Fonds Desjardins with $222 million. They were the only firms that recorded over $100 million in monthly net sales.

Most of the other leading companies had net redemptions or modestly positive sales results. In some cases this was due to redemptions from money market funds overwhelming positive long-term net sales — RBC and TD Asset Management — but a number of firms also saw long-term fund redemptions. Fidelity Investments Canada ULC recorded $401 million in long-term redemptions, followed by Invesco Trimark with $315 million.

IFIC also reported that industry assets will likely be flat at between $616.4 billion and $621.4 billion, compared with last month’s total of $618 billion.

“Year-over-year asset growth remained strong at close to 20% in April though events in Europe led to asset growth being essentially flat from March,” said Pat Dunwoody, vice president of member services and communications with IFIC.

“The industry saw a slight month-over-month slowdown in money market fund redemptions in April which, coupled with the larger slowdown in long term fund sales that we tend to see after RRSP season, resulted in overall net redemptions for the month,” she added.

IE