responsAbility Invests $13.5m in Microfinance Institutions (MFIs) VisionFund Cambodia, Equity Bank of Kenya
responsAbility Social Investments AG, a Swiss for-profit company that operates four microfinance investment vehicles (MIVs), recently reported to MicroCapital that it has invested USD 13.5 million in microfinance institutions (MFIs) Equity Bank of Kenya and VisionFund Cambodia. The investments have been made through three MIVs: the responsAbility Global Microfinance Fund (rAGMF), which makes short- and medium-term investments in MFIs and MIVs; the responsAbility Microfinance Leaders Fund (rAMLF), which primarily invests in large MFIs; and the responsAbility Mikrofinanz-Fonds, which provides debt financing to MFIs. In Kenya, responsAbility Mikrofinanz-Fonds and rAMLF have each invested USD 2.5 million and rAGMF has invested USD 7.5 million in Equity Bank, a deposit-taking MFI. As of December 31, 2010, Equity Bank reported to the US-based Microfinance Information Exchange (MIX), total assets of USD 1.66 billion, a gross loan portfolio of USD 925 million, return on assets (ROA) of 6.43 percent, return on equity (ROE) of 28.6 percent and 525,000 active borrowers. VisionFund Cambodia, an MFI that is a member of the VisionFund International network, borrowed USD 700,000 from rAGMF and USD 300,000 from rAMLF. As of December 31, 2010, VisionFund Cambodia reported to MIX total assets of USD 36.6 million, a gross loan portfolio of USD 30 million, ROA of 2.81 percent, ROE of 10.9 percent and 108,000 active borrowers. As of 2010, VisionFund supported 40 affiliate MFIs which reported total assets of USD 418 million, a gross loan portfolio of USD 341 million and approximately 638,000 active borrowers. As of September 2011, responsAbility reported total assets under management of approximately USD 1 billion.
