6 Iranian Banks to Auction Excess Properties by January

Six Iranian lenders are planning to rid themselves of their excess properties by staging four auctions from Dec. 22 to Jan. 5, 2018, the head of the Company for Selling Banks’ Excess Assets, aka Fam, announced.

“Refah Bank is to hold the first auction through which the bank will sell 225 of its excess properties with an approximate worth of 1 trillion rials ($24.15 million),” Hassan Yamani was also quoted as saying by IBENA.

As the official outlined, there will be another auction for selling 180 of Bank Melli Iran’s excess assets, though it is not possible to currently estimate the value of these properties.

“After the two auctions, Bank Sepah also plans to sell 250 of its properties across the country and their value is currently being estimated by the bank,” he added.

The Company for Selling Banks’ Excess Assets was founded in 2008, following the approval of Central Bank of Iran and the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Finance.

Fam’s shares, held by 10 banks, only auctions the excess properties of banks and does not process the sale of other businesses.

According to Yamani, the fourth auction will be a group undertaking where Bank of Industry and Mine, Export Development Bank of Iran and Keshavarzi Bank will sell their excess properties in a single event.

The auction is planned to take place before January 5, 2018.

Iranian lenders have been urged to minimize their non-banking activities and get rid of excess properties to raise capital after their botched investments in the real-estate bubble caused them much pain in recent years.  

As Economy Minister Masoud Karbasian said over a month ago, banks have about eight months–by the end of the third month of the next fiscal year in June–to end their non-banking activities.