Responsability investments

responsAbility Investments AG
Private
Industry
  • Financial Services
  • Asset Management
Founded 2003 (2003)
Headquarters Zurich, Switzerland
Area served
 Frontier + Developing Countries
Key people
Products open and closed investment funds
Total assets USD 2.6 billion [1]
Number of employees
 184 [1]
Website responsability.com

responsAbility Investments AG is a private Swiss enterprise, founded in 2003 and headquartered in Zurich.[1] 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.[2] responsAbility Investments is registered with the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA).[1]

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).[1]

Founders, shareholders

A founding partner was Credit Suisse, the second largest Swiss bank, where the present CEO of responsAbility, Klaus Tischhauser, had worked before.[3]

Present shareholders[4] of responsAbility with a total participation of 51% are the following Swiss financial institutions:

Employees of responsAbility hold 27% of the shares.

Other investors keep the remaining 22% (as of Dec. 2014).

Investment products

Different forms of investments have been made. Depending on the product, equity participations and/or loans have been granted to 535 enterprises in 93 countries.[1] Overall investments amounted to 2440 million USD at the end of 2014.[5] responsAbility Participations AG, a subsidiary, has raised its capital by 74 million CHF in 2015.[6]

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.[7]

Specific investments

Reports and information about specific activities of reponsAbility funds are available in international publications such as The Guardian,[8] Neue Zürcher Zeitung[9] and the Microcapital Organization.[10]

Specific investments exist at the Procredit Group (Germany),[11] at the Chase Bank Kenya Limited (Kenya) and at Hattha Kaksekar Limited (Cambodia).[12]

External links

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Portrait of responsAbility Investments AG". responsAbility Investments AG. Retrieved 9 August 2015.
  2. ↑ "Perspectives 2015/16". responsAbility Investments AG. Retrieved 9 August 2015.
  3. ↑ Michael Schäfer: "Mit kleinsten Schritten ans Ziel". Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 29 April 2013
  4. ↑ "Shareholders and Partners". responsAbility Investments AG. Retrieved 9 August 2015.
  5. ↑ Monika Hegglin: "Investieren mit Rendite und ruhigem Gewissen". Finanz & Wirtschaft, 17 June 2015
  6. ↑ "Responsability Participations AG, Capital increase of 74,75 Mio CHF". Moneycab, 21 May 2015
  7. ↑ "Responsability Investmentfonds für besseren Zugang zu netzunabhängigen Energielösungen". Moneycab, 31 March 2015
  8. ↑ Paul Hailey. "How sustainable date production could aid Tunisian economic development". The Guardian. Retrieved September 16, 2015.
  9. ↑ Michael Schäfer: "Mikrofinanz-Anlagen: Stabil – und doch nicht ohne Risiko". Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 23 December 2013
  10. ↑ Examples of investments by responsAblity
  11. ↑ Owners of the ProCredit Group
  12. ↑ Shareholders of HKL
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