Overall mutual fund net sales were up in March, year over year, to $5.2 billion, according to the latest data from the Investment Funds Institute of Canada. The RRSP season overall saw its strongest sales since 1998.

IFIC reported that net sales for the month reached $5.2 billion, up from $3.5 billion for the same month last year. Long-term net sales were $4.6 billion, up from just over $4 billion in March 2006. Balanced funds led the way with $1.7 billion in net sales for domestic funds and $1.6 billion in foreign balanced funds.

Equity funds were a mixed bag, with strong sales in foreign equity funds ($1.5 billion worth), but $550 million in redemptions from domestic equity funds.

In the first quarter, net sales are up sharply to more than $17 billion, compared with $9.8 billion in the same period last year. Net sales for long-term funds reached $16.4 billion, the highest dollar amount since 1998.

Balanced fund sales are up year over year, but all of the strength is in the foreign balanced funds, which boast $5.4 billion in net sales for the quarter. This performance puts foreign balanced funds just ahead of the domestic funds’ total, and up sharply from $2.1 billion in sales for the period a year ago. Domestic balanced funds’ sales are down year over year.

Similarly, on the equities side it’s the foreign funds that are leading the way. Through the first quarter, foreign equity funds managed $6.7 billion in net sales, up from $1.5 billion in the period last year. At the same time, domestic equity sales are down from $1 billion last year to $2.7 billion in redemptions for the quarter this year.

RBC Asset Management led the way in March net sales once again, generating almost $850 million in net sales. TD Asset Management was close behind with $625 million in net sales. IGM Financial recorded $485 million in net sales, followed by AGF Funds with over $400 million in net sales. A handful of firms finished with redemptions in March, including Altamira, AIC and Acuity.

At the end of March, more than $100 billion in assets were held in fund-of-funds, representing nearly 15% of total industry assets, IFIC said. And, during the first quarter, net sales of fund-of-funds accounted for $9.1 billion of the $17.1 billion generated by the mutual funds industry.

On a year-over-year basis, assets grew by 13.2%, IFIC reported, thanks to a combination of healthy net sales and gains in the domestic equity markets. Total mutual fund assets rose by 1.5% during March, to end the month at $690 billion.