McLean Budden Ltd. said it is cutting its management fees on all of its mutual funds, making them among the lowest in the industry.

The Toronto-based investment manager said it is lowering the management expense ratio by five basis points across the board. That means the company’s funds will carry an MER ranging from 1.25% for its equity funds, to 0.95% for its balanced funds and 0.55% for its money market fund. The new MERs are effective April 1.

MERs generally range from 2.29% to 2.43% for equity and balanced funds.

McLean Budden also launched a new fund today, the McLean Budden Canadian Equity mutual fund, that will carry the new lower MER of 1.25%.

This is the second time in four years the company has chopped MERs.

“As investment managers working for individual and institutional investors in Canada and the U.S. since 1947, we have a wider view of just how important the MER issue is,” said Douglas Mahaffy, president and CEO. “After all, investment success is not just about growth and returns; it’s also about managing cost. We’re determined to be at the forefront of the industry, and reducing our MERs whenever we can is just common sense.”

“In 2000, we last lowered our MERs from what was already a low base,” Mahaffy said in a release. “We’ve experienced strong asset growth – our mutual fund assets passed the $1 billion mark in January – and we’ve been able to reduce our costs through internal efficiencies. As a result, we can further reduce our fees today.”

The new Canadian Equity mutual fund is a style-neutral equity fund composed of large capitalization Canadian stocks that mirrors the firm’s highly ranked MB Canadian Equity (Core) pooled fund. But unlike McLean Budden’s other two Canadian equity mutual funds, the new Canadian Equity fund has no foreign content, making it simpler for investors to create a customized balanced portfolio by using the new fund together with other McLean Budden funds, the company said.