New Ireland Assurance to offer two new funds in partnership with M&G plc

21 September 2022: New Ireland Assurance today announced a partnership with international savings and investments business, M&G plc, to offer two new and innovative smoothed multi-asset funds for Irish savers, known as PruFunds.

The two newly-developed funds, New Ireland PruFund Cautious and New Ireland PruFund Growth, will be available to New Ireland Assurance’s customers in Ireland through its investment product and individual pension arrangements1. The funds will be available via brokers, financial advisers and through Bank of Ireland channels.

Built on the success of M&G’s flagship £59.1 billion (€68.7bn)2 PruFund range in the UK, the funds are actively-managed by M&G, invest in a globally-diverse multi-asset portfolio and use a carefully-designed, innovative built-in mechanism, known as smoothing, which aims to reduce volatility and provide investors with more stable returns.

Michael Murphy, Managing Director of New Ireland Assurance, said: “We are delighted to partner with M&G plc on these new funds, which are unique within the Irish market. The PruFund range has been extremely popular and market leading in the UK for many years, partly because it smooths some of the short-term ups and downs of direct stock market investments. With current investment market volatility, the smoothing, liquidity and strong long-term performance of this fund will be particularly attractive for investors and supplement New Ireland’s suite of funds for customers with a low to medium or medium appetite for investment risk. It is an extremely compelling and unique option for the Irish market that will enable New Ireland to meet a real customer need and deliver potential long-term returns.”

Clare Bousfield, Managing Director for Retail and Savings at M&G plc, said: “We are very excited to be launching the New Ireland PruFund range. The launch enables us to offer the Prufund range to customers in Ireland, having delivered an excellent performance in the UK over the last 17 years. I am delighted to be able to work with New Ireland on this innovative and strategic opportunity.”

Ends

Notes to Editors:

  1. Smart Funds, Personal Single Premium Pension, Personal Retirement Bond, Approved Retirement Fund (ARF).
  2. As at 30 June 2022 (conversion rate £1: €1.162)

About PruFund in the UK

An advised-only multi-asset fund, PruFunds aims to grow client’s money over the medium to long term (5-10 years or more) while protecting them from some of the short-term market volatility of direct investment.

The PruFund range has £59.1 billion assets under management and over 450,000 customers (as of 30 June 2022).

PruFunds employs a smoothing mechanism. It is specifically designed to smooth extreme short-term stock market volatility by setting Expected Growth Rates (EGR) for each PruFund fund. Reviewed quarterly, EGRs reflect M&G plc’s view on how they think the funds will perform over the long term and gives advisers a guideline they can use for planning and cashflow modelling. The EGRs help smooth investment returns.

In the event of actual performance diverging significantly from the EGRs, adjustments can be made through Unit Price Adjustments and Unit Price Resets. These are employed to amend returns up or down accordingly only when a set of criteria has been met. While this means the funds do not experience the full highs of the markets, it also means it avoids the extreme lows.

In the UK, there are many different versions of PruFund covering the major product lines of Onshore and Offshore Bonds, ISAs and Pensions. The two most popular funds within PruFund are Growth and Cautious.

About M&G plc

M&G plc is an international savings and investments business, managing money for around 5 million retail customers and more than 800 institutional clients in 28 markets. As at 30 June 2022, we had £348.9 billion of assets under management and administration. Our purpose is to help people manage and grow their savings and investments, responsibly.

With a heritage dating back more than 170 years, M&G plc has a long history of innovation in savings and investments, combining asset management and insurance expertise to offer a wide range of solutions. We serve our savings and insurance customers under the Prudential brand in the UK and Europe, and under the M&G Investments brand for asset management clients globally.

About New Ireland

New Ireland Assurance Company was the first wholly Irish owned life assurance company to transact business in Ireland. We provide life assurance, pensions and investment solutions to individual and corporate customers. We are a leading life assurance company in Ireland with:

  • a market share of new business of 20% in 2021
  • new sales of €1.83 billion of new lump sum business in 2021
  • new sales of €211 million of new regular premium business in 2021
  • funds under management of over €21.7 billion (December 2021)
  • In excess of 600,000 customer contracts

We pride ourselves on our commitment to providing high quality, courteous and efficient service to our customers. The strategy for our business, the goal of the senior management team and the focus of our staff is to look after our new and existing customers better than any other company in the Irish market. New Ireland Assurance is part of the Bank of Ireland Group.