New figures show that Irish managed pension funds experienced a negative return of 3% in December, and a total return of -34% for 2008.
The December fall reflects a continued fall in equity markets for most of the month, according to consulting group Hewitt Associates, which released the figures today.
Irish pension funds have been badly affected by the collapse in Irish equity values, Hewitt said, particularly financial stocks, which contributed to a 65% decline in the ISEQ in 2008.
According to Hewitt, the average Irish pension fund had a weighting of 15% in Irish equities at the start of 2008. This declined to 7% by year's end, but the exposure to Irish equities is still well above the weighting of the ISEQ in the world equity index.
In 2008 the Irish stock market lost €60 billion in value and experienced its worst annual decline since its inception in 1793.
The world equity index lost 37% in euro terms. The US, which makes up about half the world index, had its worst year since the 1930s Depression.
Hewitt Managed Fund Index returns are indicating three year returns of -9.8% per year, and only marginally positive returns of 0.2% and 0.8% per year, respectively, over five and 10 years.
Hewitt will issue its full pension managed fund survey on January 5.
