Bank Sepah has targeted “equal distribution” of its financial resources in a bid to help boost growth and development in country, the bank’s CEO said on Saturday.
“Bank Sepah is more focused on deprived areas and the loans allocated to these regions have increased significantly compared with last year,” Kamel Taghavinejad said in a meeting in the province of Yazd.
“Eighty percent of the financial resources collected in a given region should be allocated as investment in the manufacturing sector in the same area,” he said, adding that the bank has recently increased investment in the oil industry. In addition, the bank has long been an active investor in iron ore industry. The significant contribution from the lender throughout the years, as Taghavinejad puts it, “has matured the industry leading to self-sufficiency of steel industry in raw materials.”
However, the heavy mine royalties of 25-30 percent has posed a serious threat to the future of iron ore companies, whose stakes are majorly held by the bank.
Sepah has now decided to sell some of its companies like Chadormalou and Golgohar and Omid Investment in the capital market under the relevant conditions and requirements.
This has nothing to do with the bank’s plans to reduce involvement in business activities, but the decision comes as a result of heavy mine royalties placed on the sector, which makes it economically unjustified, Taghavinejad explained.
Bank Sepah, the first Iranian bank, was founded in 1925 in Rasht, Gilan. The lender has now branches in Frankfurt, Paris and Rome as well as a subsidiary, Bank Sepah International plc, in London.
