The mutual fund industry continued to enjoy strong net sales in April. The Investment Funds Institute of Canada says that net sales, excluding re-invested distributions of $284.3 million, totalled $1.4 billion.

“Net sales are the strongest for an April since 1998. Sales for the first four months of 2004 totalled $12.3 billion, compared with $8.8 billion in 2002 and net redemptions of $1.7 billion in 2003,” said Tom Hockin, IFIC’s president and CEO, in a news release.

Hockin noted that the majority of net sales continues to come in the balanced, bond, and dividend and income categories. Bond funds led the way with $593 million in net sales. Dividend and balanced funds were neck-in-neck for second place, with net sales of $475.6 million and $455.6 million, respectively.

However, the Canadian equity and foreign equity categories both experienced net redemptions, $161.8 million and $80.7 million, respectively.

Total assets under management increased in May to $470.7 billion, up 1.3% from $464.6 billion in March. Assets are up 23.8% from last April’s figure of $380.2 billion.

Most of the big firms lagged the industry average in asset gains, with asset totals contracting at the two biggest firms in the industry, RBC and Investors Group. AGF, Fidelity, AIC, Dynamic and TD all saw their assets slip, too.

However, CI was a big winner, with its assets jumping 20% as its asset totals now include Assante’s Optima Strategy Pools. Other firms with strong gains include Brandes, McLean Budden and Standard Life.