Iran’s largest investment holding pockets over $0.4 billion through IPO

Iran’s largest investment holding Shasta has offered a portion of its shares in the stock market pocketing more than $0.4 billion through the initial public offering (IPO).

The official IRNA news agency said on Wednesday that Shasta’s IPO was the biggest of its kind in the history of the Tehran Stock Exchange (TSE), adding that a total of 6.7 billion shares were sold off to 2.07 million buyers in a matter of hours.

Shasta, a subsidiary of state-run Social Security Organization (SSO), is the largest investment holding in Iran with an estimated value of $6.25 billion. It has nine major finance companies active in areas like energy and communications with around 44,000 staff members.

Another 1.3 million shares will also be on offer on Saturday for a sell-off to smaller investments funds, said the report by IRNA, adding that the total IPO is expected to generate nearly 70 trillion rials, or around $440 million, in new funds for Shasta.

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Iranian President Hassan Rouhani reacted to the IPO in a Cabinet meeting on Wednesday, describing the move as bold and a first of its kind by an Iranian government in history.

Iran’s ministry of labor (MCLS), which is in charge of SSO and its subsidiary companies, said it would gradually give up ownership of its economic enterprises to become a sheer shareholder.

Shasta’s IPO, which was carried out through Fara Bourse (IFB) a second market of the TSE for small-cap deals on securities and other financial instruments, is expected to boost a stock market index that has already gone through all-time highs.

The TEDPIX, the main index in the TSE, topped 645,761 points on Wednesday, bringing the total value of the market to 23,580 trillion rials or $147.37 billion.

The main index at IFB also hit a record high of 8,183 points while its total value reached 5,150 trillion rials ($32.18 billion).