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Amortization of deferred sales commissions and fund contracts was $40.9 million in the fourth quarter of 2012, a decrease from $41.1 million in the fourth quarter of 2011 and unchanged from the third quarter of 2012. The trend of lower amortization expense is consistent with the trend in lower spending on deferred sales commissions in recent years. 

Interest expense of $6.2 million was recorded for the quarter ended December 31, 2012 compared with $6.8 million for the quarter ended December 31, 2011 and $6.3 million for the quarter ended September 30, 2012. As mentioned earlier, the decrease in interest expense from the prior year period reflected lower average debt levels, as discussed under “Liquidity and Capital Resources.” 

As illustrated in Table 7, EBITDA for the quarter ended December 31, 2012 was $178.8 million ($0.63 per share) compared with $173.6 million ($0.61 per share) for the quarter ended December 31, 2011 and $175.2 million ($0.62 per share) for the quarter ended September 30, 2012. The 3% year-over-year increase in quarterly EBITDA reflects the increase in average assets under management offset by the effect of the change in asset mix. EBITDA as a percentage of total revenues (EBITDA margin) for the fourth quarter of 2012 was 48.2%, down slightly from 48.7% in the last quarter of 2011 and 48.5% in the prior quarter. 

## ASSET MANAGEMENT SEGMENT 

The Asset Management segment is CI’s principal business segment and includes the operating results and fi nancial position of CI Investments and CIPC. 

## TABLE 8: RESULTS OF OPERATIONS – ASSET MANAGEMENT SEGMENT 

The following table presents the operating results for the Asset Management segment: 

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