CI Financial Inc. today reported an 82% in second-quarter profit thanks to robust equity markets and strong sales of its mutual funds.

Net income for the three months ended Nov. 30, 2005 was $75.7 million, or 26¢ a share, up from $41.5 million, or 14¢ a share, a year ago.

The company also took a hurt by a $17.9 million charge for stock-based compensation due to the 19% increase of CI’s share price during the quarter, while the yea -before profit was hit by an after-tax $34-million charge to compensate fundholders for allowing trading violations in certain funds.

Stripping out those items, profit was 30¢ a share, up from the year-before core profit of 26¢ a share.

Revenue rose 10% to $315.8 million, while total fee-earnings assets were $70.5 billion at the end of November, up 6% from $66.4 billion a year earlier.

Net fund sales were $465.3 million in the quarter, up 56% from $297.8 million in the year-before quarter, while gross sales rose 32% to $2.5 billion during the quarter.

Looking ahead, CI noted it had $65 million of net fund sales in December, the first month of the third quarter, as the TSX index rose 4.1% during the month.