If the “Six” manages to reach an agreement with Iran on the nuclear program and the international sanctions are at least partially lifted, western investors will most likely be interested in the stock market of the country.
The fact that Iran has a stock market at all surprises even the most experienced investors. Since 2008 Yukha Koyonen, head of the Helsinki-based Confido Capital (manages about $200 million) has invested tens of million dollars in Iran and he did not even suspect that Iran has the share market. Confido is a rare example of the western company present at the Iranian market. The US, EU and UN sanctions banning the western banks from working with the Iranian ones, allow the foreign investors neither join nor leave it, if they have some money left there.
It was unclear how fast the situation will change. But some western managers already have plans and the financial companies based in Tehran try to help the investors to receive information about Iran or even visit the country. Few western style hotels in Tehran are booked and the Iranian financiers hardly have time for tours and briefings for the western investors. “Every day I meet with the managers,” boasts Reza Soltanzada, General Director Iran Industries Investment.
Iran’s stock market has been working better, than others in the neighboring countries and even developing markets, and it has a potential to outrun them, western capitalists believe. Those who have money left at the Iranian market admit that it is not that bad for them: during several years the market has grown by several times and in 2013 when Khasan Roukhani was elected President and promised to re-discover the country for the world, the market has gone up.
In 2014 reduction of Rial rate and slump of oil prices negatively affected the investors’ profit: total capitalization of assets at the exchange in Rial decreased by more than 25%, in USD – by more than one third to $83 billion. Since early 2015 the market has declined by additional 5.5%.
The Tehran stock exchange was founded in 1968, reported Russian Vedomosti newspaper.
