Iran to divest more shares in banks, IPO planned for top refinery
The Iranian government says its remaining shares in three major banks will be listed in the local stock market while it plans to hold an initial public offering (IPO) for the country’s largest gas refinery.
Iran’s finance minister Farhad Dejpassand said on Wednesday that the government would divest its shares in Mellat, Saderat and Tejarat banks in the form a third exchange traded fund (ETF) in the near future.
The government listed a first ETF in the Tehran Stock Exchange (TSE) in May to sell a bloc of its stocks in the three banks as well as two insurance companies.
The listing generated nearly $1 billion in new revenues for the government and sparked a massive boom in trade in the TSE.
A second ETF containing shares of several top crude refineries was offered in early September although the listing was not as successful as the first one mainly because of a decline in stocks trade.
Speaking to reporters after a Cabinet session, Dejpassand said the government was considering an IPO for Persian Gulf Star Refinery, the largest gas condensate refinery in the world.
“There is a discussion on the IPO for the Persian Gulf Star as one of the large-scale enterprises,” he said, adding that the government’s policy was to hold similar IPOs to “deepen” trade in the TSE.
TSE’s main index TEDPIX rose by 1.72 percent to reach 1,540,725.98 points on Wednesday, according to an official website monitoring trade in the market.
That brought the total value of the market to 58,052.356 trillion rials (more than $195 billion).
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