Responsability investments

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responsAbility Investments AGCompany type| Private

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Industry|

* Financial Services
* Asset Management

Founded| 2003; 22 years ago (2003)
Headquarters|

Zürich

Switzerland

Area served

| Emerging Markets

Key people

* Rochus Mommartz (CEO)[1]
* Tara Hesse (COO)[1]

Products| open and closed investment funds
Total assets| USD 4.8 billion [2]

Number of employees

| 240[2]
Parent|

* M&G plc (2022–present)

Website| responsability.com

Responsability Investments AG is a private Swiss enterprise, founded in 2003 and headquartered in Zürich. Its core business are investments in microfinance companies which provide credit and other banking services to very small, small and medium-sized enterprises who 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).

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]

On May 3, 2022, M&G plc completed the acquisition of responsAbility Investments AG.[4]

In March 2017, ResponsAbility Investments AG and Incofin Investment Management (Belgium) invested $20 million in Sohan Lal Commodity Management.[5]

## Founders, shareholders

[edit]

A founding partner was Credit Suisse, the second largest Swiss bank.[6]

Shareholders of responsAbility with a total participation of 66% were financial institutions such as:

* Baumann & Cie, Banquiers, Basel
* Christian Super, Australia
* Raiffeisen (Switzerland), St. Gallen
* Swiss Re Foundation, Zürich
* Vontobel Beteiligungen AG, Zürich

Employees of responsAbility held 14% of the shares.

Other investors kept the remaining 20%.[7]

On 27 January 2022, it announced that the British firm M&G plc had acquired a majority stake in responsAbility Investment AG.[8] The acquisition was completed on May 3, 2022.

## Investment products

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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.[9]

## Specific investments

[edit]

Reports and information about specific activities of reponsAbility funds are available in international publications such as The Guardian,[10] Neue Zürcher Zeitung[11] and the Microcapital Organization.[12]

## External links

[edit]

* Company Website responsAbility Investments
* Mikrofinance.de (in German)

## References

[edit]

1. ^ a b "People". responsability.com. Retrieved 2023-11-26.
2. ^ a b c d "About responsAbility". Retrieved 2023-11-26.
3. ^ "Perspectives 2015/16". responsAbility Investments AG. Retrieved 9 August 2015.
4. ^ "M&G completes the acquisition of responsAbility Investments AG". responsAbility Investments AG. Retrieved 2022-12-20.
5. ^ Dhanjal, Swaraj Singh (16 March 2017). "Incofin, ResponsAbility invest $20 million in agri-logistics firm Sohan Lal". Livemint.
6. ^ Michael Schäfer: "Mit kleinsten Schritten ans Ziel". Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 29 April 2013
7. ^ Shareholders. responsability.com- Retrieved June 28, 2019
8. ^ M&G acquires leading impact investor, responsAbility Investments AG. Press Release, M&G, January 2022, Retrieved 2 February 2022.
9. ^ "Responsability Investmentfonds für besseren Zugang zu netzunabhängigen Energielösungen". Moneycab, 31 March 2015
10. ^ Paul Hailey. "How sustainable date production could aid Tunisian economic development". The Guardian. Retrieved September 16, 2015.
11. ^ Michael Schäfer: "Mikrofinanz-Anlagen: Stabil – und doch nicht ohne Risiko". Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 23 December 2013
12. ^ Examples of investments by responsAbility