Actively managed and as inexpensive as an ETF

Dear investors,

Our favorite mixed fund turns 20 in September 2026. Since its launch, it has achieved an average return of 5.5% per year. Once again this year, the fund received several awards, including the German Fund Award, the Austrian Fund Award, and the €uro FundAwards. They are confirmation of what many of our customers appreciate: a balanced investment strategy at a fair price.

We took a look behind the scenes and talked with the colleagues from Portfolio Management about the Siemens Balanced fund.

Pierre Sattler (PS), Portfolio Manager in the Equities Team, and Bernd Walter (BW), Portfolio Manager in the Fixed Income team (fixed-income securities), talk about the strategy, development and special features of the fund.

Bernd, Pierre — congratulations on 20 years of Siemens Balanced! You and your team colleagues can be proud of this achievement.

For all those who are not yet familiar with the fund, what's it about?

BW: The Siemens Balanced is a mixed fund that can invest both in equities and in fixed-income securities. The equity quota has deliberately been kept at around 30% since the fund was launched, and the remaining roughly 70% is currently invested in corporate bonds. Our focus is on careful stock picking.

Management of asset allocation, in other words, the distribution between bonds and equities, adopts a "steady hand" policy. That stands for a level-headed, long-term approach that avoids hectic reallocations. In addition, diversifying effects from the combination of corporate bonds and equities are used to spread the risk and leverage opportunities for returns.

According to the investment conditions, the fund could invest up to 50% in equities, so why have we stayed so constant at around 30% since its launch?

PS: This is a conscious decision: On the one hand, we want to offer a reliable risk profile, on the other, we want to systematically exploit opportunities.

Specifically, that means that the 30% are our strategic anchor, and we only deviate from it if clear market opportunities arise. A good example was the phase after the coronavirus correction, during which we temporarily raised the equity quota in order to benefit from the subsequent recovery.

There are countless mixed funds out there. What sets Siemens Balanced apart from the rest?

PS: What's special about Siemens Balanced, in our view, is primarily the combination of active management and fair costs.

We operate, depending on the unit class*, with an ongoing charge from 0.31% per year and no entry fee, at a level that would otherwise usually be expected from passive ETFs (exchange-traded funds). At the same time, however, we adopt a clearly structured, active investment approach, both in asset allocation and in stock picking.

The result is an attractive overall package: Investors receive an actively managed mixed fund aimed specifically at generating added value – and at costs that are on the lower side in a market comparison.

What do you pay particular attention to in order to keep the costs low?

BW: On the one hand, our investment process is extremely efficient. It is heavily model-based and relies primarily on portfolio trades instead of individual trades. In other words, instead of carrying out lots of individual transactions, we bundle our purchases and sales, which reduces the transaction charges considerably.

On the other, Siemens Fonds Invest benefits from good market access via the Siemens Group. That allows us to usually obtain conditions that individual investors or smaller institutions would often not be able to achieve.

Passive investments such as ETFs are all the rage — is active fund management even still worth it?

BW: Active management remains, in our view, indispensable. In a purely passive world, the input from market players who form their own opinion and position themselves accordingly is lacking. They ensure that prices reflect a variety of assessments.

The more money is managed passively, the greater the opportunities for active investors should become to anticipate mispricing in the markets at an early stage. At the same time, both worlds are merging: Passive products are becoming more active — for example, through "smart beta" or "factor" ETFs — while active investment is becoming more passive (model-based, more automated).

In addition, we also provide access with our actively managed funds to markets, for which there are no passive solutions or where different products have to be combined (expensive).

20 years of Siemens Balanced — how has the fund developed during this time?

PS: The fund was launched in September 2006, so it looks back on a long history.

Over this period, the fund has enjoyed a stable development and proved itself in different market phases, both in very good years in the stock market and in more difficult times.

What's especially important for us in that we generated a balanced risk/return profile throughout the entire cycle and achieved added value over the benchmark over longer periods.

The fund has experienced many crises since its launch. Which phase was the most difficult, and what did you learn from it?

PS: Phases in which conventional diversification only functions to a limited extent are particularly challenging, for example, 2008 during the global financial crisis, the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, or the Ukraine crisis in 2022.

In phases like those, even a mixed fund cannot fully avoid losses. Our aim, however, is to limit declines and, above all, strategically exploit opportunities again in the subsequent recovery phases. This is where our structured investment process comes into play, as it can avoid emotional decisions and systematically identify opportunities.

Do you have a specific example where active management clearly worked better than an ETF?

PS: An excellent example is the phase around the coronavirus pandemic in 2020. Our models indicated back then that the likelihood of overheating in the stock market was very high. As a result, we raised the equity quota carefully, but assertively and enjoyed above-average gains in the subsequent recovery phase. This specific countercyclical behavior is a key advantage of active, model-based decisions over purely passive approaches.

How often do you make adjustments in the portfolio?

BW: Basically around every two months on the bonds side and around every three months on the equities side. That’s usually sufficient, and it keeps the costs low.

Trade conflicts, geopolitical tensions, fluctuating interest rates — how do you assess the outlook, and do you adjust your strategy?

BW: In our view, volatile times in particular offer opportunities for active investors. Within our regular reallocations we try to identify and exploit mispricing. The long-term track record of Siemens Balanced confirms our philosophy and demonstrates the diversifying features of the bonds/equities mix, especially across volatile phases.

Without making individual recommendations: which investment profile does Siemens Balanced basically suit, and for how long should an investor invest in it?

PS: Siemens Balanced can be interesting for investors looking for a balanced risk/return ratio.
Basically, a mid- to long-term investment horizon would be recommended so that the benefits of the strategy can unfold over the cycle. The reason for that is that markets can fluctuate greatly in the short term, and a broadly diversified mixed fund cannot avoid temporary declines. The benefits of the diversification, the tactical allocation, and the quantitative models can only be exploited to the full over a longer period.

Many thanks for your time!

*Unit class A (DE000A0KEXM6):
Ongoing charges p.a.: 0.31% (as at 31 May 2026)
Performance fee: 0% (as at 31 May 2026)
Charges reduce returns.

Unit class B (DE000A40NEA6):
Ongoing charges p.a.: 0.43% (as at 31 May 2026)
Performance-related fee: as a higher management fee is charged than for share class A, share class B does not include a performance-related fee component.
Fees reduce returns.

06.08.2026