The RRSP season got off to sluggish start, as mutual fund net sales were just $660.7 million in January. That’s a drop of more than 63% from $1.8 billion in the same month last year, according to the figures released Tuesday by the Investment Funds Institute of Canada.

Investors continue to take a rather conservative stance, loading up on income-focused funds, but selling pure equity funds. The strongest sector in January was the dividend and income funds, which enjoyed $982 million in net sales for the month. This was followed by $691.6 million in balanced fund net sales and $524.7 million for bond and income funds.

However, the pure equity categories saw some large offsetting outflows in the month. Almost $700 million was cashed out of Canadian equity funds. Foreign equity funds saw $576 million in net redemptions. U.S. equity funds suffered $287 million in redemptions. This compares with the situation a year ago when Canadian and U.S. equity funds managed modest net sales, $69.3 million and $78.7 million respectively. And, only the foreign equity funds had net redemptions, and these redemptions were much lower at $75.9 million.

Faced with these weak results, IFIC is focusing on industry assets, which remain healthy, surpassing $500 billion for the first time. “We have reached a landmark going past half a trillion dollars in assets,” said John Murray, IFIC’s vice president, regulation & corporate affairs. “It is also heartening to note that most of the new sales have come from investors putting their dollars into long-term funds.”

Total assets under management in January alone increased 0.6% from December to $500.4 billion. However, as sales remain rather concentrated in the income categories, the handful of firms with strong offerings in these sectors enjoyed disproportionate asset growth. Dynamic’s assets are up 2.5% in the month, PH&N added 2.8% in assets, and Guardian was up 3.2%.

The big loser in the month was AGF, which suffered a 4.6% asset drop. Other losers include AIC, Altamira, Clarington and Ethical Funds.

Among the bank-owned firms, RBC led the way with a 1% asset gain, followed closely by CIBC at 0.9%, and BMO and Scotia, both at 0.8%. TD was running under the industry average, with just a 0.2% asset gain.

The big independents were a mixed bag, with CI and Franklin Templeton both beating the average asset gain, whereas, Fidelity and AIM Funds Management lagged a little.

The other big asset gains came in the smaller independents. Brandes continues to add assets impressively, despite its focus on the otherwise-unpopular equity categories. It saw assets increase 5.2% in the month, and there were similar strong gains for Acuity, Saxon, Mawer and Northwest.

Manulife saw its assets jump 12.2% in the month, although this includes the effect of transfers due to mergers of Manulife and Maritime Life funds.

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