TEDPIX, IFX Conclude Trading Week Lower

Tehran Stock Exchange’s main index TEDPIX lost 152 points or 0.2% during the week that ended September 13 to close at 83,524.

Trading at Iran’s stock markets starts on Saturday and ends on Wednesday. The markets were closed on Saturday due to a holiday.

The main index of the smaller over-the-counter exchange Iran Fara Bourse IFX shed 4.2 points or 0.4% during the week to end at 944.4.

Over 2.38 billion shares valued at $226.1 million were traded on TSE last week. The number of traded shares and trade value dropped by 26% and 9.6% respectively.

TSE’s First Market Index shed 329 points or 0.68% to end at 58,144.

The Second Market Index rose by 1,262 points or 0.69% to close at 184,119.

At IFB, more than 738 million securities valued at $156.61 million were traded. The number of traded shares and trade value dropped by 44% and 22% compared to the previous week.

IFB’s market cap gained $764.6 million or 2.8% to reach $27.92 billion.

Its First Market witnessed the trading of 72 million securities valued at $3.42 million, indicating a 5% and 19% decline in the number of traded securities and trade value respectively.

About 372 million securities valued at $31.1 million were traded in the Second Market, with the number of traded securities and trade value shrinking by 34% and 32% week-on-week respectively.

Over 4 million debt securities valued at $100.5 million were also traded at IFB. The number of bonds traded and trade value grew by 9% and 8% respectively.

 Data-Sharing Deal With Greek Firm

Iran Financial Center signed a data-sharing deal with the Greek data vendor company Inforex S.A. at Tehran Stock Exchange on Sunday.

As per the deal, signed by IFC’s Managing Director Ali Naqavi and the head of Inforex, Elena Pateropoulou, the center will share data on Iran’s stock trading and financial securities with Inforex that will compile and offer them to foreign investors through its different platforms for a period of two years, IFC’s public relations reported.

Inforex’s product portfolio includes a desktop and web application, financial widgets and an iOS-based application called InforexMobile.

According to its website, Inforex is an official data vendor of the Athens Stock Exchange, the Cyprus Stock Exchange, CME & Dow Jones, CBOT, NYSE Euronext and Deutsche Boerse.

Established in 2007, IFC is in the business of training capital market participants in Iran. It designs and facilitates training programs for regulators, company directors and market professionals.

The company’s board is made up of heads of Central Securities Depository of Iran, Iran Fara Bourse, Iran Mercantile Exchange, Tehran Stock Exchange and Iran Energy Exchange.

 Shasta Mulls Floating All Subsidiaries

Iran’s largest holding, Social Security Investment Company, is set to offer the shares of all its subsidiaries on the equity market by the end of the current fiscal year (March 20, 2018), the deputy head of the company’s board of directors said last week.

“Currently, 75% of our subsidiaries are listed on the equity market. We are planning to list the rest by next year in order to make them more competitive and their financial status more transparent,” Morteza Lotfi was also quoted as saying by ILNA.

The investment arm of Social Security Organization, also known by its Persian acronym Shasta, controls nine holdings operating in a wide range of sectors, including petroleum, petrochemicals, pharmaceuticals, cement, transportation and finance. These holdings in turn manage about 200 subsidiaries, employ 1,000 board members and hold assets worth 350 trillion rials ($9.02 billion).

Subsidiaries of two holdings, namely Tamin Pharmaceutical Investment Company and Tamin Petroleum & Petrochemical Investment Company, are already listed on the equity market.

The holdings slated for listing are Tamin Cement Investment Company, Tamin General Industrial Holding Company and Tamin Construction and Transportation Investment Company, according to SSIC’s Managing Director Reza Norouz-Zadeh.

“We have asked [Securities and Exchange Organization] to analyze and pave the way for the three holdings to go public. We initially plan to offer less than 5% of their shares for price discovery, and then follow up with offering 30%. This way Shasta will keep a 64% stake in them,” Bourse Press quoted the official as saying.

SSIC’s portfolio is quite vast, as the numbers indicate. The cement holding, for instance, manages 13 cement companies, 3 mining factories and 3 engineering plants, most of which are the largest in the industry and account for 40% of national output of the material.

 HiWeb Stages 5th IPO of the Year

The privately-owned Internet service provider HiWeb had its initial public offering on the Iranian capital market on Wednesday, as 10% of its shares were offered to the public.

Over 400 million shares were sold at the price range of 2,715 to 2,850 rials per share to make HiWeb the 515th company listed on Tehran Stock Exchange.

With a market cap of 11.4 trillion rials ($293.32 million), 360 million of the company’s shares were floated while another 40 million went to the company’s staff, Bourse Press reported.

At the end of Wednesday trading, the price of each share of “HWEB” was set at 2,850 rials. The company’s P/E ratio stood at 7.3, with the forecasted earning per share reaching 386 rials per share.

Earlier in March, Iran’s Communications Regulatory Authority released the ranking of leading ADSL Internet service providers, naming HiWeb along with its old rival Shatel as the second best local Internet service provider in the country.

Each institutional and non-institutional investor was given a 5,000-share purchase quota as trading commenced, but the figure dropped to 3,661 as the day moved on due to the sizable demand.

HiWeb signed a non-equity “partner market agreement” with Britain’s biggest mobile operator Vodafone last October, which is one of the most advanced ISPs in terms of investment in infrastructure and offers.

According to a Vodafone press release at the time, as part of the new deal, Vodafone will assist HiWeb in modernizing network and IT infrastructure in addition to expanding fixed and mobile Internet services.

HiWeb’s IPO will enable it to raise funds for financing projects with Vodafone.

This was the fifth IPO of this fiscal year (started March 21), following Chador Sazan Company, Parsian Kowsar Hotel, MobinOne Kish and Behpardakht Mellat. Most of the offerings have been warmly received so far, with MobinOne and Behpardakht sustaining a healthy demand.

Before the recent offerings, all IPOs on the Iranian equity market had been suspended since early February, due to what the Securities and Exchange Organization referred to as an attempt to support investors and prevent liquidity flight.