Descartes Minimum Risk 100

100% equity, but built with a factor model that targets reduced volatility. The 'minimum risk' label means something specific.

Descartes Minimum Risk 100 ranks #50 among 82 3a investment funds in Switzerland. It's an actively-managed 99% equity strategy built on OLZ Optimized ESG factor-based funds, held in a personal securities account at Lienhardt & Partner Privatbank Zürich. Different from a standard index 100 in how the equity gets selected.

What Factor-Based Selection Costs You at 100% Equity

All-in cost is 0.76% (0.56% weighted TER plus 0.20% flat fee). On CHF 50,000 that's CHF 380 per year. That's CHF 60 more annually than Descartes Index 100 (0.64% all-in) and roughly CHF 175 more than VIAC Global 100 (0.41% all-in).

What you're paying for is active factor-based selection by OLZ, not a cap-weighted index. OLZ Optimized ESG funds use systematic low-correlation portfolio construction targeting reduced volatility. The flat platform fee is only 0.20% (lower than the Index family's 0.40%), but the underlying funds carry a higher TER because they're actively-constructed strategies, not pure index trackers.

What Actually Stands Out

Factor-based minimum variance is genuinely different from anything VIAC or frankly offer. OLZ Optimized ESG funds rank stocks on systematic factors (volatility, correlation, fundamentals) and weight to minimize total portfolio variance rather than market cap. In long backtests this has historically delivered equity-like returns with materially lower drawdowns.

The 99% equity is split across OLZ Equity World ex CH Optimized ESG (74%), OLZ Equity Switzerland Optimized ESG (15%) and OLZ Equity Emerging Market Optimized ESG (10%) plus a 1% Swisscanto money market sleeve. Custody is at Lienhardt & Partner Privatbank Zürich in your own personal depot, with weekly trading in the 3a domain.

What Most Reviews Miss

Minimum variance can lag in pure bull runs. When markets melt up driven by high-beta mega-caps (think 2023 AI rally), a minimum-variance portfolio underweights those exact names. The 3-year return of +21.80% sits well below cap-weighted index 100 strategies for that reason. The thesis is that the smoother ride pays off across full cycles, not in a single boom year.

The 10-year return of +40.00% is the honest number for the long-run factor strategy versus the +122.90% on cap-weighted Descartes Index 100. That gap is partly the rally-of-the-decade in US tech mega-caps, which OLZ structurally underweights. Whether the factor approach catches up over the next decade depends on how the next set of regimes plays out.

The Bottom Line

Descartes Minimum Risk 100 makes sense if you want full equity participation but specifically want a factor-based approach with lower expected volatility than cap-weighted indices. The cost premium versus a plain index 100 is real and the recent performance gap is real. Compare against the cap-weighted leaders in our guide to the best 3a investment funds in Switzerland.

Verdict: A reasonable factor-based equity 3a for investors who specifically buy the OLZ minimum-variance thesis and accept it can underperform in mega-cap rallies.