MICROCAPITAL BRIEF: Symbiotics Raises $4.6m via Green Bond for Samunnati Financial for Sustainable Agriculture in India

India’s Samunnati Financial Intermediation & Services, whose customers are farmer-producer organizations and other members of agricultural value chains, recently raised the rupee-equivalent of USD 4.6 million in a bond issue handled by Symbiotics, a Switzerland-based impact investing platform. The bond transaction is the first by Symbiotics that specifically promotes agricultural methods addressing challenges such as reducing the release of greenhouse gasses and increasing resilience to climate change. The parties have agreed to comply with the Green Bond Principles set by the International Capital Market Association (ICMA) Group, an NGO based in Switzerland. These principles offer a framework for investing in areas such as environmentally sustainable agriculture, renewable energy and pollution prevention.

Samunnati Financial, a subsidiary of Samunnati Group, operated in 14 Indian states and employed 270 people, generating profits of INR 94 million (USD 1.3 million) during the 2019 fiscal year. The entity provides loans with terms of up to five years to agri-businesses and producer organizations. Its non-financial offerings include training and call-center services.

Founded in 2014, Samunnati Group seeks “to provide smallholder farmers and agri enterprises access to markets through financial intermediation, market linkages and advisory services.” At the end of the 2019 fiscal year, it reported assets of INR 1.3 billion (USD 17.5 million) with operations in 22 states in India. In addition to Samunnati Financial, Samunnati Group controls Samunnati Agro Solutions, a provider of agricultural technology services.

Founded in 2004, Symbiotics provides for-profit investment intermediary and business services to investors in and practitioners of MSME (micro-, small and medium-sized enterprise) development as well as lenders to low- and middle-income households. As of 2019, the company reported a direct investment portfolio of USD 2.3 billion, with its investees serving 1.6 million small businesses and households at “the base of the pyramid” in 77 emerging markets.

By Teo Lin-Bianco, Research Associate

Sources and Additional Resources

Symbiotics press release
https://symbioticsgroup.com/news/press-release-symbiotics-launches-first-100-agricultural-green-bond-in-india-with-samunnati/

Samunnati homepage
https://samunnati.com/

Samunnati annual report 2019
https://samunnati.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Annual-Report_2019.pdf

Symbiotics homepage
https://symbioticsgroup.com/

Symbiotics 2019 annual report
https://symbioticsgroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Symbiotics-Annual-Report-2019.pdf

Symbiotics Social, Sustainability and Green Bond Framework
https://symbioticsgroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Sustainability-Social-and-Green-Bond-framework-for-Symbiotics.pdf

ICMA homepage
https://www.icmagroup.org/

ICMA Green Bond Principles
https://www.icmagroup.org/assets/documents/Regulatory/Green-Bonds/Green-Bonds-Principles-June-2018-270520.pdf

Previous MicroCapital article on Symbiotics
https://www.microcapital.org/microcapital-brief-impact-investor-symbiotics-spins-off-consultancy-tameo/

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