Descartes Minimum Risk 80

An 80/20 with the equity sleeve built on a factor model, not a cap-weighted index.

Descartes Minimum Risk 80 ranks #63 among 82 3a investment funds in Switzerland. It's an actively-managed 80% equity strategy on OLZ Optimized ESG factor funds with a 20% Swisscanto money market sleeve, held in a personal securities account at Lienhardt & Partner Privatbank Zürich. For investors who want classic 80/20 exposure with a different equity selection methodology than the index leaders.

Why 'Minimum Risk' at 80% Equity Still Has Teeth

All-in cost is 0.73% (0.53% weighted TER plus 0.20% flat fee). On CHF 50,000 that's CHF 365 per year. That's CHF 30 more annually than Descartes Index 80 (0.67% all-in) and roughly CHF 165 more than the cheapest pure-digital 80% equity 3a strategies.

The extra cost buys you active factor-based equity selection from OLZ instead of cap-weighted index tracking. At 80% equity the methodology matters: when a downturn hits, the minimum-variance construction has historically experienced smaller drawdowns than cap-weighted equivalents. If sleeping better through the next correction matters, the methodology premium can pay for itself.

What Actually Stands Out

The equity sleeve is 80% in OLZ Optimized ESG factor funds (World ex CH, Switzerland, Emerging Market), balanced by 20% Swisscanto Money Market Fund CHF FT. The OLZ methodology weights stocks to minimize total portfolio variance rather than market cap, which produces a different sector and country tilt than a standard MSCI World fund.

Lienhardt & Partner Privatbank Zürich holds the assets in a personal securities account in your own name. Weekly trading in the 3a domain, fractional fund shares supported, on-demand human advisor access through the Descartes platform. The structural setup is identical to the other Descartes strategies.

What Most Reviews Miss

The defensive sleeve is money market, not bonds. Bond percent on the strategy is 0%. So you don't get bond duration in the 20% non-equity bucket, just cash-equivalent stability. That's a deliberate Descartes design choice across the family, not a Minimum-Risk-specific feature.

The 5-year return of +10.20% trails Descartes Index 80 (+24.80%) by a wide margin. Most of that gap is the minimum-variance methodology underweighting the mega-cap winners that drove cap-weighted returns through 2023-2024. The 10-year +29.90% confirms the long-run gap is structural for this regime. The bet is that the methodology earns its keep across full cycles.

The Bottom Line

Descartes Minimum Risk 80 makes sense if you specifically want OLZ's factor-based minimum variance methodology applied to an 80/20 3a. The cost premium and the recent performance gap versus cap-weighted index alternatives are real. See how the index alternatives compare in our guide to the best 3a investment funds in Switzerland.

Verdict: A coherent factor-based 80/20 for investors who buy the minimum-variance thesis and accept the recent return gap as the cost of that approach.