Fair Trade Fund
Investment fund
Social investment company with assets under management of USD 1 billion
With assets under management of USD 1 billion, responsAbility is one of the world's leading social investment companies. Its areas of focus include microfinance, SME financing, fair trade, and independent media. responsAbility's investment solutions give people in developing and emerging economies access to markets, information, and other services crucial to their development; they enable private and institutional investors to earn a financial return while at the same time making a positive social impact.
Founded in 2003, responsAbility operates as an independent asset manager. Its shareholders are renowned Swiss financial institutions, a social venture capital company, and responsAbility's own employees. The assets managed by responsAbility are currently invested in 372 companies and 70 countries.
Summary
The responsAbility Fair Trade Fund makes suitable forms of finance available to organizations along the entire agricultural value chain. The organizations use this working capital, for example, to finance members of cooperatives. A little funding can also be used to procure means of production, such as a mill. The fund gives investors simple and professional access to an agrarian segment in which investment would otherwise hardly be possible.
Financial return: Net target return is 3-5% in USD per year over a five-year period.
Investment Objective
The fund invests mainly in fixed-interest debt securities of fair-trade-oriented institutions for terms of up to one year. A very limited proportion of the fund may also be invested in equity. The vast majority of investments are in developing and emerging countries all over the world.
In principle, investments are diversified across different agricultural products and spread across different regions. Due to market size, the importance of Latin America and coffee as an agricultural commodity is central. Investment decisions are guided by strict internal investment criteria. The fund targets mainly established organizations with long experience.
The responsAbility Fair Trade Fund is suitable for investors seeking both a financial return and to improve opportunities for small farmers in developing countries. The fund is also a suitable means of portfolio diversification, as there is little correlation between trends in these investments and other asset classes. The fund is designed for private and institutional investors with a medium- to long-term horizon. It is not suited to investors who wish to profit from growth in value of the underlying commodities.
