Responsability investments

responsAbility Investments AG is a private Swiss enterprise, founded in 2003 and headquartered in Zurich. Its core business are investments in microfinance companies which provide credit and other banking services to very small, small and medium-sized enterprises who have previously had limited access to formal financial services in frontier or developing countries. Socially responsible business that seeks to be both transparent and profitable on a sustainable basis is financed. Impact investing is a general term used for such endeavors. In addition, investments are made in specific agriculture and energy companies in frontier or developing countries.[3] responsAbility Investments is registered with the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA).

responsAbility Investments AG
Private
Industry
  • Financial Services
  • Asset Management
Founded2003 (2003)
Headquarters
Zurich
,
Switzerland
Area served
Frontier + Developing Countries
Key people
Productsopen and closed investment funds
Total assetsUSD 3.0 billion [2]
Number of employees
240[2]
Websiteresponsability.com

Besides operations in Switzerland, responsAbility has its own personnel in Lima (Peru), Mumbai (India), Nairobi (Kenya), Hong Kong (China), Bangkok (Thailand) as well as in Paris (France) and Oslo (Norway).[2]

Founders, shareholders

A founding partner was Credit Suisse, the second largest Swiss bank.[4]

Present shareholders of responsAbility with a total participation of 66% are financial institutions such as:

Employees of responsAbility hold 14% of the shares.

Other investors keep the remaining 20% (as of Dec. 2018).[5]

Investment products

Different forms of investments have been made. Depending on the product, equity participations and/or loans have been granted to 540 enterprises in 90 countries.[2] Overall investments amounted to 3 billion USD at the end of 2018.

Some products are closed funds or limited partnerships. The responsAbility Global Microfinance Fund is an open fund and has assets of over a billion USD, but is not available in English-speaking countries.

A new investment fund targets low-cost solutions to provide electricity in rural areas, which don't have connection to electricity grids. For this purpose, funds have been raised from, among others, the International Finance Corporation as a member of the World Bank and the Shell Foundation during spring 2015. The Shell Foundation expects that the living conditions of about 20 million people in developing countries will improve as a result of these investments during the next three years.[6]

Specific investments

Reports and information about specific activities of reponsAbility funds are available in international publications such as The Guardian,[7] Neue Zürcher Zeitung[8] and the Microcapital Organization.[9]

Specific investments exist at the Procredit Group (Germany),[10] at the Chase Bank Kenya Limited (Kenya) and at Hattha Kaksekar Limited (Cambodia).[11]

gollark: No. We cannot.
gollark: And yet it has SPACES in it?
gollark: Yes.
gollark: Wait, what do you mean "the" C quine?
gollark: A bijection could be made between you and an arbitrarily large quantity of nanoscale bees.

References
  1. People. responsability.com. Retrieved June 28, 2019
  2. Company profile. responsability.com. Retrieved June 28, 2019
  3. "Perspectives 2015/16". responsAbility Investments AG. Retrieved 9 August 2015.
  4. Michael Schäfer: "Mit kleinsten Schritten ans Ziel". Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 29 April 2013
  5. Shareholders. responsability.com- Retrieved June 28, 2019
  6. "Responsability Investmentfonds für besseren Zugang zu netzunabhängigen Energielösungen". Moneycab, 31 March 2015
  7. Paul Hailey. "How sustainable date production could aid Tunisian economic development". The Guardian. Retrieved September 16, 2015.
  8. Michael Schäfer: "Mikrofinanz-Anlagen: Stabil – und doch nicht ohne Risiko". Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 23 December 2013
  9. Examples of investments by responsAblity
  10. Owners of the ProCredit Group
  11. Shareholders of HKL
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