CI Fund Management Inc. is reporting higher profit for the first quarter ended August 31. The fund manager said revenues got a boost from last-year’s purchase of two mutual fund units from Sun Life Financial.

CI said net income for the quarter was $43.5 million, or 19¢ a share, up from $17.5 million, or 9¢ a share, a year ago.

Revenues for the quarter climbed to $152.3 million from $130.4 million, helped by the acquisition of the Spectrum Investment and Clarica Diversico funds from Sun Life.

The most significant component of revenues for the quarter was management fees, which increased by 25.3% from $109.7 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2003 to $137.5 million in fiscal 2004.

Average mutual and segregated fund assets rose 6% on the year to $29.4 billion from $27.7 billion, while total fee-earning assets inched up 1.1% to $35.4 billion.

During the quarter, net redemptions were $30.7 million, compared with $241.6 million.

Trailer fees rose from $30.7 million in fiscal 2003 to $39.3 million in fiscal 2004, an increase of 28.0%. This exceeded the increase in average mutual and segregated fund assets due to the high percentage of front-end-load assets in the former Clarica Diversico funds relative to the CI funds..

In August, CI announced its $1 billion plans to buying the Canadian operations of financial planner Assante Corp., as well as fund managers Synergy Asset Management, and Skylon Capital Corp.

The Synergy acquisition was completed on October 6, while CI expects to close the Skylon acquisition within the week. The Assante takeover is expected to close in November.