Best Pension Fund Manager Ireland – Top Ranked

When seeking to discover the best pension fund manager performance (operating in Ireland), make sure your source of information is fully transparent, unbiased, and displays its independent source and be aware of Misleading “Top Fund” Articles.

Unfortunately, the internet has some articles designed to make you feel like you’re missing out on the “right” pension funds. However, these pieces often focus on short-term performance or sensational returns, rather than sound investing principles and risk management considerations.

If you’re new to pensions or long-term investing, it’s essential to understand the fundamentals before making any decisions on investing in a pension. That knowledge will help you stay on track and avoid being swayed by misleading headlines.

Understanding the “Best Performing” Pension Funds

1. Recent performance doesn’t mean best choice.
   Identifying the top-performing funds (especially single asset funds) over a five-year period (or longer) only makes sense if you’re willing to accept substantially high risks — including the risk of substantial loss, don’t ignore the importance of risk management and the advantageous of spreading risk.
2. Risk and reward go hand in hand.
   The higher the potential return, the greater the potential for loss. Every investor must find their own comfort level, balancing risk and reward.
3. Equities can deliver—but with volatility.
   Stocks (equities) tend to provide the highest returns over the long term, but they also carry significant short-term risk. Unless you have enough time—based on your age and investment horizon—to recover from inevitable market downturns (or a potential crash), an all in very high, or equity only allocation should be very carefully considered.
4. Past winners don’t guarantee future success.
   In the very recent past year, some high-risk European equity funds, tech-focused funds, and gold have performed very strongly. However, that doesn’t mean they’ll continue to do so in the near term or that they’re necessarily right for your portfolio today. Take a considered and balanced approach to risk.
5. Think beyond recent performance.
   Choosing pension funds wisely involves more than chasing returns. Consider factors such as historical asset prices, economic trends, geopolitical risks, and—most importantly—your personal time horizon.
6. Time is your greatest advantage.
   The younger you are, the more risk you can generally afford to take. That’s because you’ll have more time to ride out inevitable market corrections and crashes. Remember, no one can consistently time the market.

 

How to Choose Top Performing Funds

Before actually choosing funds, it is important to factor in charges for a much truer comparison and to personalise your eventual selection, aligned to risk/reward tolerance, investment management style, time horizon, and if important to you, ESG preferences. 

Drawdown (a peak-to-trough decline during a specific period for an investment) also creates a considerable difference in human behaviour, so the concept of hedging risk by using a combination of underlying assets and even blending funds, can also pay dividends over time.

Let’s take a moment to think about a little more on how be can manage risk and reward, before diving into broad based fund performance comparisons.

The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), introduced fund risk ratings to protect investors back in Jan 2011.  These ratings run from very low ESMA 1,  to very high ESMA 7, but for the purposes of the tables below, we are displaying the most typical risk tolerance, amongst pension and post-retirement investors, ESMA 4 & ESMA 5, as defined below:

• ESMA 4 – Medium risk investors: likely to accept significant risk in return for the potential of good investment gains over the long-term. Accept significant fluctuations in the investment value, particularly over the short-term, but want to limit the amount of money held in more risky investments. Such funds normally carry a target volatility range of 5-10% over a rolling five year period.
• ESMA 5 – Med to high risk investor: likely to understand that the investment can go down and up sharply, particularly in the short term, with the potential for greater returns over the long term. Such funds normally carry a target volatility range of 10-15% over a rolling five year period.

Best Performing Pension Fund Manager – key pointers:

• All funds carry a risk rating meaning that they work to remain with a volatility range,
• Different funds carry different charging levels, so these must also be carefully reviewed.
• Pre and post-retirement investments need different approaches in terms of risk management.

There is no single leading fund, or top fund manager, for every risk level and time horizon, and it goes without saying, that past performance is no guarantee of future performance.

However, consistent long-term performance does provide some indication over the same investment time horizon, provided that you’re comparing like-for-like volatility ranges and allowing for charges.

Charges are not uniform and just because a fund sits within the same ESMA rating, does not mean that its standard deviation (volatility) will mirror that of its competitors. However, in displaying all figures below, we have shown gross performance prior to charges to allow for the most accurate comparison.

Best Pension Fund Manager Comparison – Golden Rules:

1. The risk level must be the same when comparing funds.
2. Time horizon is a key factor in any pension investment consideration.
3. Charges are not uniform across different provider funds, so must be factored in.

So its important to appreciate the dangers of a quick reliance on the first page to pop up under a Google Search, without properly sourced unbiased information. 

For simplicity, I have outlined the top 5 average annualised and cumulative returns for the leading medium risk (ESMA 4) and medium to high risk (ESMA 5) funds, currently available in Ireland.

However, remember these are gross returns before charges, and different charges applying to different pension fund providers and to product type. Charges are fixed whilst past returns are indicative and not in any way guaranteed. 

I’ve outlined the 5 top performing funds over 10 years, but have also detailed more recently launched funds over 5 years.

Multi-asset – (ESMA 4) – 10 Year – Medium Risk 

(Targeted volatility range: 5-10%)

Fund	Cumulative	Average
1st Zurich – Prisma 4 Fund	93.79%	6.84% PA
2nd Irish Life – Diversified Balanced	93.20%	6.81% PA
3rd New Ireland – iFunds 4 Alpha	79.72%	6.04% PA
4th Irish Life – Maps 4	77.39%	5.90% PA
5th Aviva – Multi-asset 4	57.59%	4.65% PA

Comment:

• Over the past 10 years, Zurich offers consistent top tier performance, although have been known to exceed their volatility ranges in recent years. 

Active – Multi-asset (ESMA 5) – 10 year – Medium to High Risk

(Targeted volatility range 10-15%)

Fund	Cumulative	Average
1s Zurich – Prisma 5 Fund	154.07%	9.77% PA
2nd Irish Life – Diversified Growth	138.04%	9.06% PA
3rd New Ireland – Pension Managed	116.82%	7.98% PA
4th New Ireland – iFunds 5	112.60%	7.80% PA
5th Irish Life – Maps 5	94.90%	6.90% PA

Comment:

• Zurich again top the table over 10 years, however, given their higher AMCs, it is wise to make comparison with Irish Life and New Ireland offerings in particular, when factoring in charges.

More Recent Performance

Active – Multi-asset (ESMA 4) – 5 Year – Medium Risk 

(Targeted Volatility range 5-10%)

Fund	Cumulative	Average
1st Irish Life – Balanced Portfolio	45.60%	7.80% PA
2nd Irish Life – Maps 4	44.81%	7.69% PA
3rd Zurich – Prisma 4	44.06%	7.57% PA
4th New Ireland – iFunds 4	41.79%	7.23% PA
5th New Ireland – GDI 4	40.64%	7.06% PA

Comment:

• Notably in this medium risk, multi-asset fund space, Irish Life dominates the past 5 years, which Zurich’s highly popular Prisma 4 fund slipping into 3rd.

Multi-asset (ESMA 5) – 5 Year – Medium to High Risk 

(Targeted Volatility 10-15%)

Fund	Cumulative	Average
1st New Ireland – Pension Managed	77.81%	12.20% PA
2nd Aviva – Cantor Fitzgerald 70	77.11%	12.11% PA
3rd Zurich – Prisma 5	72.01%	11.46% PA
4th Irish Life – Diversified Growth	71.95%	11.45% PA
5th Irish Life – Maps 5	72.01%	9.02%% PA

Notes:

• In this higher ESMA 5 risk space, in the more recent times, it is New Ireland and Aviva that have best weathered the markets.

Additional Notes:

• Performance dates are taken on 11/11/2025.
• Independent information source: Longboat Analytics
• Always insist on fully transparent charges, the TER and not just the AMC.

Key Takeaways

1. The best value indicator is down to cost and performance combined.
2. No single insurance firm, or fund manager tops all tables all of the time.
3. Rather than a single fund choice, a combination fund strategies can often be the best approach.
4. Volatility must be considered as it influences human behaviour, over time.

Discover more about our unbiased pension advisory investment philosophy.

Speak with a Financial Advisor

To arrange your free no-obligation consultation contact us today. Contact: Ken O’Gorman – Director – QFA, CB, RPA, SIA – Retirement Specialist – One Quote Financial Brokers on: 01 845 0049 or email: ken@onequote.ie

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