CI Financial Corp. President Stephen MacPhail speaks to shareholders in this 2010 file photo.MIKE CASSESE/Reuters
Even though the Dow Jones Industrial Average is soaring to record heights, these are still tough markets for asset managers.
Institutional money managers may be buying back into the stock market, but retail investors remain skeptical, worried about being burned again.
Yet against this backdrop there's an asset manager defying the odds: CI Financial Corp.
The latest sales figures tell the whole story. RRSP season is a crucial time for asset managers because the two-month window accounted for more than half of all long-term mutual fund sales for the past three years, and CI Financial's net sales in February were its highest since 2000.
Better yet, the company's assets under management now total nearly $80-billion, a new all-time high for CI.
While AUM can be a tricky measure because market moves are factored in, over the past year the S&P/TSX Composite Index is more or less flat, while CI's mutual fund sales are up 9 per cent.
Even more striking, IGM Financial Inc.'s are up only 3 per cent and AGF Management Ltd.'s are down a shocking 13 per cent, according to an analysis by Barclays Capital analyst John Aiken.
The stock prices of these three companies tell you everything you need to know. CI's shares are up 23 per cent in the past year, while IGM's are basically flat and AGF's are off 25 per cent. And CI investors are being rewarded for sticking with the company because management just raised the dividend again, bringing their annual payout to $1.02 per share, representing a dividend yield of 3.8 per cent.
A bright spot in a tough industry, indeed.
Editor's note: An earlier online version of this story incorrectly stated the amount of CI's assets under management. This has been corrected.