First quarter mutual fund sales were down almost 14% year over year, according to new data from the Investment Funds Institute of Canada.

IFIC reported that net sales, excluding re-invested distributions, totalled $9.4 billion through the first three months of 2005. This is down about 13.7% from the same period a year ago. In March, net sales, excluding reinvested distributions of $783.3 million, totalled $3.4 billion.

“Net sales for the first three months of this year stood at $9.4 billion as the 2005 [RRSP season] wound down,” said Tom Hockin, IFIC’s president & CEO.

In March, dividend & income funds continued to lead fund sales, with almost $1.4 billion in net sales. This asset class was closely followed by balanced funds, which recorded more than $1.2 billion in net sales for the month. “Canadian investors continued to show they have ongoing confidence in the long-term benefits of mutual funds — both by the amounts of funds that were purchased and the fact they purchased long-term funds,” Hockin added.

However, pure equity funds continue to struggle to find sales. In March, both the foreign and U.S. Equity classes were in net redemptions for the month. And, Canadian equity were almost there, recording just $26.7 million in net sales.

These trends are mimicked in the year to date data. Dividend funds led sales at almost $4.2 billion through the first quarter. Balanced funds saw $3.6 billion in net sales, followed by bond funds at $2.5 billion. However, all of the pure equity categories finished the quarter in net redemptions, led by $911 million in redemptions from foreign equity funds. Canadian equity funds suffered $32 million in net redemptions for the period. U.S. equity funds had almost $283 million in redemptions.

Total assets under management in March were $513.9 billion, which represents a drop of 0.7% for the month. However, total assets are up 10.6% year over year.

Among the large firms, only the banks managed to produce asset growth in March, with RBC, TD and BMO, up 0.3%, 0.5% and 0.4%, respectively.

The rest of the 10 largest firms saw asset declines, led by a 3.5% drop at AGF and 2.4% at Franklin Templeton. AIC saw its assets slide 4.3% in the month, and Altamira was down 3.5%.

Asset gainers among smaller companies include Standard Life, Acuity and Manulife.