Irish Life contributed €27.4 million to the third- quarter profits of its Canadian parent company, Great-West Lifeco, according to results published yesterday.

This represented a 52 per cent decline on the same quarter last year, which the firm said was due to exceptional investment gains and a significant release of reserves following basis changes in insurance contracts in 2014’s third quarter.

Great-West Lifeco said its insurance and annuities sales for the third quarter were C$7.7 billion (€5.4 billion), up from C$2.9 billion a year ago, primarily due to higher fund- management fees in Ireland.

“Our total investor assets in Irish Life’s multi-asset portfolio solutions reached €4 billion [in the quarter], including over €1 billion in our retail Maps funds,” said Irish Life chief executive Bill Kyle.“We also recruited our first Canadian client, Investors Group, for the management of a global equity mandate and acquired the retail and office properties in the Dublin Sovereign Portfolio for circa €150 million.”