Net sales of all mutual funds, excluding re-invested distributions of $311.5 million, totaled $50 million in August, according to the latest report from the Investment Funds Institute of Canada. That’s down 90% from July.

Net sales for all funds including re-invested distributions were $361 million.

“Net sales for long-term funds for the month of August were $377 million. This further increases year-to-date sales in 2004 for these funds to $14.2 billion compared with $1.9 billion for the same period in 2003 and $9.5 billion for 2002,” said Tom Hockin, IFIC’s President and CEO, in a release.

August sales were lower across all categories of long-term funds except dividend and income funds, where net sales excluding re-invested distributions were up 11.8% over July sales.

Canadian equity funds suffered net redemptions of $249,000. This was offset somewhat by positive sales of balanced funds and bond and income funds, at $269,000 and $145,000, respectively.

“Net redemptions in August for money market funds pushed the total money market sales for the first eight months of 2004 below positive territory,” Hockin added.

Gross sales of money market funds for the month of August totaled $3.3 billion. Net sales of money market funds in August were minus $327 million and minus $270 million including re-invested distributions. Total assets under management in money market funds were $52.9 billion.

IFIC also reported the total number of unitholder accounts slipped to 51 million, a 0.4% decrease over one year ago.

Total assets under management decreased in August to $468.1 billion, down 0.4% from $470.0 billion in July. However, assets are up 13.4% from last August’s figure of $412.9 billion.

Smaller fund firms such as Brandes Investment Partners, Hartford Investments Canada Corp. saw their assets increase in August.

Among the 10 largest firms by assets, the biggest percentage losses for the month hit Fidelity Investments Canada Ltd. and AGF Management Ltd.