Irish Life MAPS

THEDUDEINWHITE

Anyone any feedback on Irish Life MAPS offerings?

How they compare to other options and the fees associated? Specifically MAPS 4

http://www.ilim.com/downloads/fund_sheets_retail/01_Retail_Fund_Fact_Sheets/+++-Multi_Asset_Portfolio_4.pdf?ts=1477428764418

topper_harley2

Lots of charts and graphs, no mention of a TER in sight. Have you searched the forum? http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=97083376 previous thread on same.....unlikely much has changed

irish_investr

very convoluted.

0.9% mgt fees. plus "depending on. . . " fees. And MAPS4 invests in other funds - are those underlying funds also charging?

irishinvestor.ie

THEDUDEINWHITE

Thanks I was searching here and askaboutmoney - didn't come across it thanks for finding that will give it a read.

Yeah the mgmt. fee can fluctuate but it is limited; no there is no additional fund charges on that.

Looking at the overall picture of Irish Life funds; MAPS offers a good rounding of diversified investments with an average 8-9% annualised return over past 3 years with the flexibility to move between risk levels.

Any thoughts on this compared to other products?

irish_investr

@THEDUDEINWHITE

"the mgmt. fee can fluctuate but it is limited; no there is no additional fund charges on that." - not really true.

Lets say you invest €100. The 1% mgt fee is siphoned off during the year so at the end of year 1, you have €99 invested. Now the point I am trying to make is that this €99 is invested in X, Y, and Z, and the issue I am raising is that X, Y , and Z also have costs. The underlying investments in this MAPS product are convoluted. If the entire capital was invested in plain vanilla stocks and bonds, fine - we know and expect some transactional costs. However, that fund is putting money in other funds, which also have management fees. So, of your €99 invested, lets say €50 is put into other funds, which have a management fee of 1%. So in fact only €49.50 is really invested into fundamental assets. Now your actual cost is €1.50. This is how they can fiddle with TER and other cost statistics.

I would not be so certain about this product having "a good rounding of diversified investments". Just because nobody can understand them does not mean they're diversified. I notice that the fund is managed by some kind of algorithm called "DSC" and I would be very skeptical of that. These kind of models have been known as "fee and error maximizers", and I think history will show that its a model which "buys high and sells low". Just compare the DSC signal chart at the bottom of the maps-quarterly-update-q2-2016 page on their site, with the actual performance of a global equity ETF.

irishinvestor.ie

bridster007

irish_investr wrote: »

@THEDUDEINWHITE

"the mgmt. fee can fluctuate but it is limited; no there is no additional fund charges on that." - not really true.

Lets say you invest €100. The 1% mgt fee is siphoned off during the year so at the end of year 1, you have €99 invested. Now the point I am trying to make is that this €99 is invested in X, Y, and Z, and the issue I am raising is that X, Y , and Z also have costs. The underlying investments in this MAPS product are convoluted. If the entire capital was invested in plain vanilla stocks and bonds, fine - we know and expect some transactional costs. However, that fund is putting money in other funds, which also have management fees. So, of your €99 invested, lets say €50 is put into other funds, which have a management fee of 1%. So in fact only €49.50 is really invested into fundamental assets. Now your actual cost is €1.50. This is how they can fiddle with TER and other cost statistics.

I would not be so certain about this product having "a good rounding of diversified investments". Just because nobody can understand them does not mean they're diversified. I notice that the fund is managed by some kind of algorithm called "DSC" and I would be very skeptical of that. These kind of models have been known as "fee and error maximizers", and I think history will show that its a model which "buys high and sells low". Just compare the DSC signal chart at the bottom of the maps-quarterly-update-q2-2016 page on their site, with the actual performance of a global equity ETF.

irishinvestor.ie

Thanks. I'm sceptical of the DSC too - saw loads of people who moved to cash funds after a 30% fall in 2008/09, stayed there and and missed the upturn. Can't see how this DSC will avoid that too.

Regarding the external funds that Maps is invested in, while they would have say a 1% charge for joe soap, surely Irish Life has negotiated a much lower "business to business" rate, say 0.3 ? Or is that too much to assume ?

What I do like about the Maps is that they appear to limit the overexposure to the Irish stock market inherent in some funds.

irish_investr

@bridster007
There are a few different scenarios, not all of them are beneficial to the investor. In fact I have tried calling, chatting, and mailing IL to find out, but couldn't get any satisfactory explanation of how those fees work. I saw that other people on the boards here had also tried to get info, unsuccessfully. Personally, I would not be inclined to give the benefit of the doubt.

The regional allocation of the shares portion is fairly similar to a global equity fund or ETF, and the performance is also fairly similar to a global fund, if you consider that 60% of MAPS4 is in shares. My main objection is that this fund has a convoluted setup, investing 40% in obscure "alternatives", underlying funds, as well as borrowing money to invest in property. And on top of that, applying a black-box (from the investors viewpoint) algorithm. While the performance so far has been OK, its hard to see the added value of the complicated and nontransparent management, at the moment. We'd need a new crisis to see how these funds hold up.

benjamin d

Probably a bit of a stupid question here but what kind of term and sum would you need to consider this worthwhile? Would, say 5k be worth putting in to MAPS5 for a year for example? Or would it have to be more and for longer?

topper_harley2

benjamin d wrote: »

Probably a bit of a stupid question here but what kind of term and sum would you need to consider this worthwhile? Would, say 5k be worth putting in to MAPS5 for a year for example? Or would it have to be more and for longer?

Yeah one year is too short. 5k isn't bad, not sure if MAPS has an actual minimum investment, but term definitely needs to be 5 years at least (to allow time to ride out the ups and downs of stocks).