Irish pension funds perform strongly in March

Irish pension funds consolidated the gains made in February with a strong performance in March, with an average return of 5.8%, according to Rubicon Investment Consulting.

The Dublin-based firm said this was a consequence of equity markets rallying on the back of positive economic data and a pick-up in merger and acquisition activity.

Irish Life Investment managers took top spot with a return of 6.5% for the month, while Merrion Investment Managers propped up the league table with a 4.7% return.

The gains made during February and March meant that all of the funds surveyed delivered positive returns over the first three months of the year, with the average return for the quarter coming in at 5.9%.

Over the past 12 months, all of the managed funds surveyed delivered double-digit growth, with the average fund returning 36%

Returns for the past year ranged from 42.9%, with Irish Life Investment Managers to 29.8% with AIB Investment Managers, representing a difference of 13.1% between the best and worst performing managers over the period.

The average managed fund return had been a very disappointing -6.9% per annum over the past three years.

However, the five-year returns to the end of March were positive, delivering an average return of 1.8% per annum over this period.

The Irish group pension-managed fund returns over the past 10 years had been a disappointing 0.3% per annum on average, well below the Irish inflation rate of 2.7% per annum over the same time horizon.

Indeed, none of the managed funds surveyed outperformed inflation over this period, while four of the ten funds failed to deliver positive returns over 10 years.

The Lucan-based company said that factors which caused a collapse in pension fund values included the bursting of the dot-com bubble in March 2000, the terrorist attacks in America in September 2001, and the consequent hostilities in Afghanistan and Iraq, led markets further downwards.

Article courtesy of The Evening Echo newspaper.