Descartes Minimum Risk 40

Defensive 40/60 with the equity slice built on a factor model. The defensive bucket is cash, not bonds.

Descartes Minimum Risk 40 ranks #58 among 82 3a investment funds in Switzerland. It's an actively-managed 40% equity strategy on OLZ Optimized ESG factor funds with a 60% Swisscanto money market sleeve, held in a personal securities account at Lienhardt & Partner Privatbank Zürich. A cautious allocation for investors getting close to retirement.

Are OLZ Funds Worth 0.67% at 40% Equity?

All-in cost is 0.67% (0.47% weighted TER plus 0.20% flat fee). On CHF 50,000 that's CHF 335 per year. At 40% equity the fee bites harder relative to expected returns: a 25-bps premium over a cheaper index alternative takes a bigger proportional bite when expected returns are 3-4% than when they're 7-8%.

What you're paying for is OLZ's factor-based equity selection on the 40% growth sleeve plus the Descartes hybrid digital-and-human platform. Whether that's worth the premium at this defensive tier depends on whether the methodology pays off on the smaller equity allocation and whether you'll genuinely use the advisor channel.

What Actually Stands Out

Even at 40% equity, you're getting factor-based minimum variance from OLZ (World ex CH, Switzerland, Emerging Market) rather than cap-weighted index tracking. The 60% defensive bucket is Swisscanto Money Market Fund CHF FT, providing short-duration stability.

Lienhardt & Partner Privatbank Zürich holds the assets in your personal depot with weekly trading in the 3a domain. The on-demand human advisor access is particularly relevant at this allocation: investors at 40% equity are typically thinking about staggered withdrawal across multiple 3a accounts, and that's a conversation worth having with a person.

What Most Reviews Miss

At 40% equity, the cap-weighted vs factor methodology matters less than at higher equity quotas. A smaller equity sleeve means less room for the OLZ approach to either save you on drawdowns or cost you on missing rallies. If you're going defensive, you might as well go with the cheapest reasonable option.

The 5-year return of +1.00% reflects exactly that: a defensive allocation with cash-equivalent rather than bond duration in the 60% sleeve, combined with the recent gap of factor underperformance versus cap-weighted. The 10-year +10.40% is the more representative long-run figure for this structure, and it lags cap-weighted 40/60 alternatives meaningfully.

The Bottom Line

Descartes Minimum Risk 40 is a coherent defensive 3a but the cost-versus-impact case weakens at this tier. Cheaper defensive alternatives exist, and a 3a savings account starts to look competitive on the cash-heavy portion. See the lineup in our guide to the best 3a investment funds in Switzerland.

Verdict: Makes sense mostly for existing Descartes clients consolidating across strategies. Standalone, cheaper or simpler alternatives are usually a better fit at 40% equity.