Irish pension funds lost further ground in January in the wake of a raft of negative economic news. Over the month, the average fund declined 1.9%, on the heels of a 34.8% loss in 2008.
Standard Life Investments was the best performing manager during January, with a return of -0.5%. Irish Life Investment Managers and Setanta Asset Management delivered the worst performances over the month, with returns of -2.7%.
Over the past twelve months, the average fund returned -31.4%, with returns ranging from -27.0% (Eagle Star) to -35.1% (Aviva Investors, formerly Hibernian Investment Managers).
Fiona Daly, Managing Director, Rubicon Investment Consulting, commented: "The average managed fund return has been an extremely disappointing -11.7% per annum over the past three years. The five year returns to the end of January are also negative, with the average managed fund delivering a return of -1.6% per annum over this period.
Irish group pension managed fund returns over the past ten years have been a very disappointing -0.4% per annum on average, well below the Irish inflation rate of 3.6% per annum over the same time horizon. Indeed, none of the managers surveyed outperformed inflation over this period, with over half of the managers failing to deliver positive returns."
