good financial standing and received the highest ratings from two independent credit rating agencies in 2018. IFC comes under frequent criticism from NGOs that it is not able to track its money because of its use of financial intermediaries. For example, a report by Oxfam International and other NGOs in 2015, "The Suffering of Others," found the IFC was not performing enough due diligence and managing risk in many of its investments in third-party lenders. Other criticism focuses on IFC working excessively with large companies or wealthy individuals already able to finance their investments without help from public institutions such as IFC, and such investments do not have an adequate positive development impact. An example often cited by NGOs and critical journalists is IFC granting financing to a Saudi prince for a five-star hotel in Ghana. History The World Bank and International Monetary Fund were designed by delegates at the Bretton Woods conference in 1944. The World Bank, then consisting of only the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, became operational in 1946. Robert L. Garner joined the World Bank in 1947 as a senior executive and expressed his view that private business could play an important role in international development. In 1950, Garner and his colleagues proposed establishing a new institution for the purpose of making private investments in the less developed countries served by the World Bank. The U.S. government encouraged the idea of an international corporation working in tandem with the World Bank to invest in private enterprises without accepting guarantees from governments, without managing those enterprises, and by collaborating with third party investors. When describing the IFC in 1955, World Bank President Eugene R. Black said that the IFC would only invest in private firms, rather than make loans to governments, and it would not manage the projects in which it invests. The concept was nonetheless controversial in the US, where some business interests were uncomfortable with the public ownership of private firms. Nonetheless, in 1956, the International Finance Corporation became operational under the leadership of Garner. It initially had 12 staff members and $100 million (equivalent to $ million in ) in capital. The corporation made its inaugural investment in 1957 by making a $2 million (equivalent to $ million in ) loan to a Brazil-based affiliate of Siemens & Halske (now Siemens AG). In 2007, IFC bought 18% stake in the Indian Financial firm,