AIC Ltd. announced a number of significant fund enhancements, among them: AIC plans to increase foreign exposure in its Canadian equity funds and also plans to offer 10% free redemptions on securities of all AIC funds purchased under the low load sales charge method, effective June 1. (This latter enhancement is available to all AIC Funds including AIC Trust Funds, AIC Corporate Funds and AIC Private Portfolio Counsel Pools [excluding AIC Segregated Funds].)

“Over the past year, AIC has undertaken a number of new products and service enhancements that have been welcomed by our clients including the development of portfolio products that provide access to some of the leading value investing managers in North America,” says Jonathan Wellum, AIC’s CEO and chief investment officer. “AIC has a 20-year track record of delivering tax efficient returns over the long run. We remain committed to working with financial advisors to provide them with products and services their clients need and we’re confident that these latest enhancements will be well received.”

In response to federal government changes, which allow increased levels of foreign content into Canadian mutual funds, AIC portfolio managers will now seek out opportunities to add/increase exposure to foreign securities inside specific Canadian fund portfolios — this will be done while maintaining AIC’s long term commitment to a value investing discipline.

As such, the following AIC funds will increase their foreign content limit up to 49%:

AIC Trust Funds:
AIC Advantage Fund
AIC Advantage Fund II
AIC Diversified Canada Fund
AIC Canadian Focused Fund
AIC Canadian Balanced Fund
AIC Bond Fund
AIC Dividend Income Fund

AIC Corporate Class Funds:
AIC Advantage II Corporate Class
AIC Canadian Focused Corporate Class
AIC Canadian Balanced Corporate Class
AIC Diversified Canada Corporate Class
AIC Total Yield Corporate Class

AIC PPC Pools:
AIC Private Portfolio Counsel Canadian Pool
AIC Private Portfolio Counsel Bond Pool

Details of the changes to the low load sales charge securities are as follows:
-10% free redemptions of low load sales charge securities
-On a partial redemption or change of securities purchased under the low load sales charge option in any calendar year, a client may redeem or change without payment of a low load sales charge up to 10% of:
(i) the number of securities you purchased by the low load sales charge method or acquired through reinvestments of distributions on those securities prior to Dec. 31 of the prior year, plus
(ii) the number of securities the client purchased by the low load sales charge method or acquired through reinvestments of distributions on those securities during the current year.

The 10% free entitlement for 2007 will be calculated using the number of low load securities held on May 31 and will be available on June 1. Subsequently, securities purchased under the low load sales charge method will be entitled to a 10% free redemption.

A client’s right to redeem securities without paying low load sales charges as described above is not cumulative from one calendar year to the next. It also does not apply where the client redeems all of his or her securities or changes all of his or her securities into a different class of securities of the same fund.

AIC has been offering 10% free redemptions on securities purchased under the deferred sales charge option since 1995. The low load sales charge option was introduced in 2005.