Bloomberg: The Iranian government plans to sell shares in Dana Insurance Co. representing 5 percent of the total, the Tehran Stock Exchange said today.
Bloomberg
By Ali Sheikholeslami
The Iranian government plans to sell shares in Dana Insurance Co. representing 5 percent of the total, the Tehran Stock Exchange said today.
The initial public offering is scheduled for Aug. 16, according to the TSE website, which cited Mohammadreza Rostami, an exchange official.
Dana is the third insurance company, after Asia and Alborz, that the Iranian government is selling, according to Mahdi Azadvari, a broker for the Bourse Bimeh Iran Brokerage. The government has a 61 percent stake in Dana. The Social Security Organization is the second-largest shareholder, with more than 23 percent, with the rest owned by Iranian employees’ pension and investment funds, Azadvari said in a telephone interview from Tehran today.
The Dana IPO is part of an effort by Iran’s government to sell state assets to reduce public debt and boost the economy. The country’s constitution requires the government to sell many of the companies it owns. It is allowed to keep a 20 percent stake in each. Some government-owned companies are excluded from the sales, such as Bank Melli and Iran Insurance, Azadvari said.
The TSE’s benchmark surged 55 percent in the first half of this year, making it the second-best performing broad market index, according to the World Federation of Exchanges. The index rose 0.9 percent today, to 16,995.
The exchange, founded in 1967, lists 337 companies with a total value of 803 trillion Iranian rials ($80.3 billion). On average, 9,886 trades were completed per day in the Iranian month of Khordad, which ended June 21, according to the exchange’s website.
