Mutual funds garnered $1.6 billion in October net sales, according to the latest data from the Investment Funds Institute of Canada,

Net sales of long-term funds reached more than $1.3 billion, up from $40 million last month and $900 million in October 2005. Balanced funds led the way with $724 million in net sales, followed by foreign equity funds at $605 million and bond funds at $450 million.

On the flip side, Canadian equity funds experienced $751 million in net redemptions, and U.S. equity funds saw $156 million in redemptions too.

The banks continue to dominate the sales, with RBC Asset Management, TD Asset Management and CIBC Asset Management generating $510 million, $382 million and $202 million in overall net sales, respectively. AGF ranked fourth with $152 million in sales, followed closely by Dynamic Mutual Funds. No other firm had as much as $100 million in net sales.

Looking solely at long-term funds, RBC and TD led the way, followed by AGF and Dynamic, but CIBC was in net redemptions. AIM Trimark, AIC and Altamira also reported long-term net redemptions for the month.

Joanne De Laurentiis, president and CEO of IFIC, said, “An interesting highlight this month was the growth of foreign equity funds. They were among the fastest-growing long-term funds, along with balanced funds and US equity funds.”

Total mutual fund assets for October 2006 were $572 billion, up 3.2% from the previous month, and up 16.5% on a year-over-year basis. So far this year, long-term mutual fund assets are up $54.4 billion, with $15.5 billion due to net sales and $39 billion in estimated market appreciation.

IFIC reported that balanced funds were the biggest gainers in terms of share of industry assets, as they now account for 26% of total assets.

The data was reported in an expanded monthly statistics release from IFIC. It said that the release of all mid-month “final” statistics will include a number of charts, accompanied by bulleted descriptions and highlights of the previous month’s investor activity.

The trade association noted that as CI Investments is no longer providing its statistics, IFIC’s accounting for assets has dropped 9%. As a result, it has also removed CI’s assets and sales when comparing historical statistics. IFIC statistics now represent the sales and assets of about 86% of mutual fund managers and distributors in Canada.