All About Multi-Asset Portfolios (MAPs)

by Irish Life Financial Services
Written by Irish Life staff
Guides • 27 March 2025 • 7 min read

You'll find out:
What a multi-asset investment fund is
How Irish Life Multi-Asset Portfolios (MAPs) work
Why a multi-asset fund could be your best investment
What is a multi-asset fund?
Multi asset funds are made up of a combination of asset classes, including equities, bonds and cash, and are designed with different asset allocations to create a range of low-to-high risk offerings.
Irish Life investments: all about Multi-Asset Portfolios (MAPs)
Irish Life’s MAPS, or Multi-Asset Portfolios, are a range of investment funds that invest in a mix of different asset classes, such as equities, bonds, property, and cash. MAPs funds aim to provide diversified investment solutions that suit different risk profiles and investment goals.
Each MAPs fund is managed to a specific risk level, designed to suit different attitudes to risk.
Who manages MAPs funds?
Irish Life’s MAPs funds are managed by Irish Life Investment Managers (ILIM). This investment firm manages funds from a wide range of companies and has done so for over 80 years – as of December 2024, ILIM manages assets worth over €131 billion.
How MAPs funds are managed for risk
What is fund rebalancing?
Fund rebalancing is an adjustment of the split of assets in a fund, which ILIM does every three months. This means that you don’t have to worry about a fund becoming a higher risk rating than the one you originally invested in.
The example below shows what happens without rebalancing after three years of shares increasing by 20% and bonds and other assets falling by 10%.

Fund rebalancing helps mitigate risk.

Without rebalancing, investment ratios can change and may no longer be suitable for the person who chose the original allocation of 50/25/25.
ILIM avoids this change in asset split by rebalancing the fund to keep it in line with its intended split. ILIM rebalances each of the MAPs funds every quarter, which means that each fund will not drift over time.
How diversification makes Multi-Asset Portfolios powerful
Diversification refers to the practice of spreading your investment portfolio across different asset classes, sectors, and geographic regions.
It’s the investment form of not putting all of your eggs in one basket. If the value of one asset falls, simultaneously another might increase, lowering the risk of overall loss. An investor buys different types of assets in the hopes that it will smooth the journey, giving peace of mind in the long run.
Why should you diversify your investments?
By diversifying, you're hoping to reduce the impacts of sudden market changes on your investment. If one particular investment performs poorly, you won't lose all of your money because you have other investments that can balance out those losses.
By diversifying, you increase your chances of benefiting from different market cycles and economic conditions, which can help improve your chance of positive returns over the long term.
“Diversification is the investment form of not putting all of your eggs in one basket.”
What are the assets in Multi-Asset Portfolios (MAPs)?
The “asset” in Multi-Asset Portfolios refers to what the money is actually invested in.
Assets can be all kinds of things from art or antiques to more traditional things like shares, property, and bonds. They can be tangible (physical items) or intangible (things that don’t physically exist but still have monetary value).
Irish Life Investment Managers (ILIM) manages assets worth over €131 billion (as of December 2024) across a broad range of asset classes.
Shares
A company’s ownership is divided into shares. The value of shares can rise and fall in line with the company’s performance. The terms share, stock, and equity are often used interchangeably.
- Global shares: usually stocks representing ownership in companies of varying sizes and in different industries all over the world.
- Global low-volatility shares: these stocks are selected based on their history of relatively stable prices, which aims to reduce overall portfolio risk. There is no guarantee of future stability, but they are considered a safer bet than global shares.
- Emerging market shares: ILIM chooses these stocks from a selection of more than 1,400 companies across 26 developing or emerging economies. These have the potential for higher returns, but this comes with greater risk – this is down to factors like political instability and currency rate changes.
- Emerging market low-volatility shares: similar to the emerging market shares, these stocks are from developing countries. However, the shares or holdings chosen are ones that have historically experienced less volatility and have the potential for a more stable return.
- Infrastructure shares: these stocks are from companies involved in providing essential services or physical structures, such as airports, toll roads, railways, ports, water, gas and many others.
Government bonds
These are loans given to various governments which are paid back at an agreed rate of interest over a set period. They’re considered to be relatively low-risk given the established nature of the governments.
High yield bonds
These are loans to corporations or governments that agree to pay higher interest rates to compensate for added risk.

ILIM manages billions of Euro in assets.
Corporate bonds
These are loans given to various companies that are paid back at an agreed rate of interest over a set period. They are considered to be riskier than government bonds due to the creditworthiness of the issuing company but also have the potential for a higher return over the long run.
Emerging market bonds
These are loans given to various companies and governments in emerging markets that are paid back at an agreed rate of interest over a set period. They’re typically riskier than bonds issued by more established economies due to factors such as political instability or currency fluctuations but have higher potential to generate a bigger return with a long-term investment.
Property
Each Irish Life MAPs fund currently has an allocation to ILIM’s Pension Property fund. The portfolio includes around 70 property assets that are leased to over 300 tenants. It also has a broad mix of commercial property. This includes offices, retail spaces and industrial properties.
Alternatives
Many Irish Life MAPs funds have an allocation to alternatives via external managers. Alternatives is a collective term for non-traditional asset classes as opposed to the traditional shares, bonds, property, and cash. Alternatives tend to have returns that are not correlated with traditional assets – in other words, if traditional asset values fall many alternatives see their values increase.
Warning: If you invest in this product you may lose some or all of the money you invest.
Warning: The value of your investment may go down as well as up.
Warning: These funds may be affected by changes in currency exchange rates.
Warning: Past performance is not a reliable guide to future performance.
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