Pension fund holds €24.1bn

The national pension fund now holds a total of €24.1bn, the National Pensions Reserve Fund Commission has announced.

The fund's discretionary portfolio (the fund excluding its directed investments) earned a return of -2.6% in the three months to end June 2010 and of 2.3% over the first six months of the year.

Since the fund’s inception in 2001, the annualised performance of the discretionary portfolio is 2.7% per annum compared with an annualised return to the average Irish managed pension fund of 0.7% per annum over the same period.

The directed investments comprise preference shares and ordinary shares in Bank of Ireland and Allied Irish Banks (including dividends on preference shares received in the form of ordinary shares).

The directed investment portfolio secured a return of 0.3% over the quarter and 4.5% for the year to date.

"Following a strong first quarter performance, mainly due to advances in global equity markets, the discretionary portfolio lost ground in the second quarter as increased fears about the sustainability of global recovery and sovereign funding in some eurozone economies led to increased market volatility," the commission said today.