CI Financial Income Fund today reported net sales of $452 million in March 2008, and assets under management of $65.8 billion and total fee-earning assets of $99.6 billion as of the end of the month.

“March ended on a very good note for CI, with retail managed assets up 1.3% over the month and net sales for February and March combined approaching $1 billion,” says Stephen MacPhail, CI President. “After the incredible turmoil during the quarter, our retail managed assets are now within 2% of where they were at Dec. 31, 2007.”

CI subsidiaries CI Investments Inc. and United Financial Corporation had combined gross retail sales in March of $1.2 billion and net sales of $452 million, consisting of $397 million in long-term funds and $55 million in money market funds. Of the total net sales, $237 million represented investments in newly created equity funds at CI Investments. (These are not considered mutual funds under the Investment Funds Institute of Canada reporting, so that CI’s net sales as reported by IFIC would be $215 million rather than the actual $452 million.)

CI’s assets under management at March 31, consisted of investment funds at CI Investments and United Financial of $62.3 billion, institutional assets at KBSH Capital Management Inc. of $2.9 billion and structured product assets of $539 million. CI also reported assets under administration of $32.3 billion, which consisted of $23.1 billion in assets under administration at Assante Wealth Management (Canada) Ltd. and $9.2 billion in assets under administration at Blackmont Capital Inc.

The Investment Funds Institute of Canada will release its preliminary estimates of March net sales on Tuesday afternoon.