The performance of Irish Life's actively managed pension funds might still be a bit iffy. But there is no doubt the launch of its consensus pension fund two years ago has been a huge success, with £800 million (#1 billion) already taken into the fund.

Now two other institutions, Canada Life and Friends First, have followed Irish Life with their own consensus funds. Friends First fund manager, Pramit Ghose, said at the launch of his fund that there was a growing market in Ireland for these funds. They track the asset allocation of the other fund managers in the Irish market and, in effect, promise pension fund trustees their funds will perform broadly in line with the market average.

Seems to be something of a conversion for the Friends First man, who bemoaned "the death of the active fund manager" in an Irish Broker article in August 1997. This article followed the launch of the Irish Life consensus fund and was pretty scathing about the whole concept of consensus funds.

The consensus fund reminded him of the football team which plays for a draw, he opined at the time. "There is a good chance it will get its desired result each season, i.e. avoid relegation. But it will never win the championship, or display passion and conviction. . ."

Seems that Friends is now happy to go for the one point rather than throw all its players into attack in search of the three points.

(# - Euro)