Zurich’s Prisma Funds - celebrating 10 years of delivering for investors

Ten years later there:

• Are almost 100,000 Irish people invested in the funds¹
• Over €8.6 billion in AUM across Prisma funds¹

Through the many market highs and lows seen in the last decade, these funds have continued to deliver for investors. Consider Prisma 4, the most popular of the range with over €3.3 billion invested¹, regardless of the market conditions of the last decade, it has still produced an annualised return of 6.2% since launch. In fact, all the Prisma funds have delivered a positive return in each and every year since their launch¹. 

Built on expertise and insights

The team at Zurich Investments are renowned for their multi-asset expertise, expertise that has been developed and refined over decades. In 1989, the ‘Managed range’, the original multi-asset funds, were launched and still today continue to deliver for our customers. The Balanced, Performance, and Dynamic funds proved to be very popular with Financial Brokers and customers alike and were the mainstay of many investments with Zurich through the 90’s, 00’s and 10’s.

Following the great financial crash in 2008, and subsequent turmoil seen in Ireland as we endured the ignominy of a bailout, Irish investors became more attuned to risk, and in particular their personal risk appetites. At Zurich, it was through this insight that we saw a change in customer (and Advisor) sentiment, and from this we developed solutions to meet the changing customer needs.

We understood that people approached risk in different ways - what worked for one person may not work for another. So, depending on the level of risk someone was willing to take, we developed the Prisma funds with five risk targeted options and we believed that one of these five funds would be suitable for most investors. Complementing the launch of the Prisma Funds was the then recent development of the easy-to-use online Zurich risk profile questionnaire that gave Financial Brokers the ability to accurately assess a customer's attitude to investment risk, and when then matched with one of the newly launched risk targeted Prisma Funds, it was nothing short of a gamechanger! 

Built on active management expertise

While the Prisma Funds were risk targeted, with options for investors in the Risk 2-6 categories, it’s the expertise of the team at Zurich Investments that has made the biggest difference when compared to other options available. Zurich Investments, the Blackrock based team within Zurich Life, consists of experienced and highly qualified investment specialists, with a proven track record of making the right asset³ allocation decisions at the right times. This team make investment decisions every day that they believe will lead to better outcomes for investors. It’s this consistent track record that has led to Financial Brokers and Advisors voting Zurich Number One for Investment Excellence³ since 2014.

The Prisma Funds are actively managed by this team, and it is Zurich’s belief that people need experts to look after their money, so we take a ‘hands-on’, active approach to investment management. We believe that good active investment managers are best placed to deliver consistent long-term investment performance. 

Diversified across the asset classes

The Prisma funds invest in a mix of assets including equities, bonds, property, alternatives and cash, all of which provide the potential for investment growth over the longer term.

These assets also introduce an element of risk to an investment that could potentially cause loss. The level of risk and potential growth provided by each of the assets is different. For example, historically equities have provided the highest levels of growth over the longer term, but also the highest level of risk, while bonds have provided lower levels of growth and smoother returns when compared to equities.

The assets within the risk rated multi-asset Prisma funds are allocated with this in mind and offer investments to suit different levels of risk, from the lower risk fund, Prisma 2 with a higher proportion of bonds compared with equities up to the higher risk Prisma Max which offers a higher proportion of equity investment.

Consistently strong performance

We believe that the funds you are invested in should be the bedrock of your pension, savings plan or investment bond. At Zurich, our Dublin based investment team have a strong track record in delivering long-term consistent fund performance³.

For over 30 years, Zurich has been managing diversified multi-asset funds for customers throughout Ireland. During that period Zurich has consistently outperformed our peers. Zurich’s Prisma 5 fund has returned 7.6% per annum over 5 years compared to the peer group average of 4.7% over the same period³. 

Always evolving with the times

Over the last decade, the Prisma funds have evolved and changed - most recently with the focus on responsible investing. Nowadays, each of the Prisma funds are rated Article 8 under the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation, the European regulation introduced to improve transparency in the market for sustainable investment products. As active managers, we’re committed to playing our part to help promote environmental and social characteristics and our responsible investment efforts should help us all achieve our collective goal of a lower carbon and more sustainable world. 

Choosing a fund

At Zurich, we remain committed to our overarching responsibility to our customers, and the primary aim of our funds continues to be to help Irish customers save for their long-term goals through delivering active investment outperformance.

The Prisma fund range from Zurich is available across Zurich Pensions, Regular Savings and Investment Bonds. To learn more, speak to your Zurich Broker Consultant or visit zurichbroker.ie.

Source:

1. Zurich Life. Annualised performance figures from launch 11/10/2013 to 11/10/2023. Returns are based on offer-to-offer performance and do not represent the return achieved by individual policies linked to the fund.

2. Rubicon multi-asset pension fund survey, 30 September 2023.

3. Awarded Investment Excellence by Brokers Ireland in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2021 & 2022. No awards held in 2020.