IRELAND - Managed pension funds reported an average third-quarter decline of 3.3%, according to a report by Rubicon Investment Consulting.

Best performer among the 10 main fund managers was AIB Managed Fund, which posted a 1.7% decline. The worst was Bank of Ireland Asset Management, which lost 5.3%.

Rubicon noted that Bank of Ireland AM was the manager with the largest exposure to Irish equities.

In recent months several consultants have identified overweight positions in domestic equities as being a factor in the under performance of funds.

AIB Managed Fund was also the best performer in September returning 1.1% compared with a market average of 0.1%. Over the last year AIB returned 11.5%, 3.9 percentage points better than the average.

Conversely Bank of Ireland AM was the worst performer over the year, quarter and September, posting a return of -0.9% in September and 3.4% since September 2006.