Mutual fund net sales for February are estimated to be between $4.4 billion to $5 billion, according to preliminary data submitted to the Investment Funds Institute of Canada.

The estimate puts total sales for the first two months more or less in line with last year. “Long-term funds were again the mutual funds of choice in February,” said Joanne De Laurentiis, IFIC’s president & CEO. “In total, the $6.3 billion in net new sales in January and February of this year top the $6 billion in net new sales that took place during the same two months of last year.”

RBC Asset Management continues to dominate sales, recording almost $1.2 billion in monthly net sales. RBC was the only firm to top the $1 billion mark. TD Asset Management continued to rank second with $683 million in net sales, followed by BMO Funds at $513 million.

CI Investments led the independents by a wide margin with $439 million in net sales. Mackenzie Financial ranked second at $262 million, followed by Fidelity Investments at $256 million.

Along with the strong sales in its Mackenzie arm, Investors Group produced $406 million in net sales. Between Mackenzie, IG and its Counsel funds, the IGM Financial group recorded $698 million in total monthly net sales, which pushes it just ahead of TD on a combined basis.

Other firms producing more than $100 million in monthly net sales include Dynamic Mutual Funds, Acuity Funds, the Fédération des caisses Desjardins du Québec, Franklin Templeton Investments and Scotia Securities.

AIC recorded $148 million in net redemptions, and Altamira reported $40 million in redemptions, too.

IFIC also estimates that net assets of the industry at the end of February will be in the range of $586 billion to $591 billion, up approximately 0.3% from last month’s total of $587.3 billion.