Mutual funds suffered another month of net redemptions in December, according to preliminary data from the Investment Funds Institute of Canada.

IFIC reported Monday evening that, based on a sample of preliminary data from some of its members, net redemptions of mutual funds for last month are estimated to be between $481 million and $981 million.

“Definitely, capital loss planning was a factor last month”, explained Pat Dunwoody, vice president of member services and communications with IFIC. “Investors who sold units earlier in the year when equity markets were at their peak were offsetting some of those gains and reducing their tax burdens by realizing capital losses in December,” she said.

RBC returned to the top of the sales charts, generating $680 million in net sales. Although this all came in money market funds ($1.1 billion worth), as long-term funds saw $436 million in net redemptions.

On an overall basis, Fidelity Investments Canada was a distant second place with $250 million in monthly net sales, although it led the long-term net sales at $206 million.

Manulife Investments was the only other firm with at least $100 million in overall net sales, including $125 million in long-term net sales.

On the downside, Invesco Trimark suffered almost $500 million in overall net redemptions.

IFIC also estimates that net assets of the mutual fund industry for the month of December will be between $504.6 billion and $509.6 billion, up approximately 0.37% from last month’s total of $505.3 billion.

The trade association notes that these statistics reflect the recent decision by CI Investments to no longer submit data to IFIC. All data has been restated to remove CI’s data from previous periods to ensure accurate historical comparisons can be made, IFIC said.

IE