The bright future envisioned in Iran for ETFs, or state-owned investment funds, was nothing more than a mirage like other capital market shares, and the situation has reached a point where funds that were supposed to bring justice to the people and be profitable are at a loss, that the buyers of this fund have been included in the list of credit losers and it is a question of how to compensate their losses.
The rise of the capital market was close to the peak, when Iran’s looting government promised to offer three government funds in the form of ETFs, and it was decided that the first fund should be in the form of banking and insurance, the second should in the form of refining and the third fund should be in the form of car and metal funds.
The government planned to market the rest of its stake in some banks, insurance companies, refineries, automobile, and steel companies, thereby transferring its shares to the public. These funds were given to the people with a 20 to 30 percent discount, and any Iranian with a national identity number could be able to buy them.
In this regard, the first fund called Dara Yekom was launched in early summer of last year and was comparable on the third of July. In fact, through this transfer, the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Finance, on behalf of the Government the regime, transferred its remaining shares in Mellat Banks, Trade and Export of Iran, and Alborz Insurance and Amin Reliance.
More than four million people participated in the underwriting of the fund. The fund, which was in line with the rising days of the capital market, had a significant return and went up to 200 percent profit.
Profitability of the Dara Yekom was to such an extent, that even with a significant drop in the overall stock index from two million units to 1.1 million units, the fund is still in profit.
Accordingly, the price of each unit of the Dara Yekom on the day of release was 10,000tomans and each unit of this fund was more than 13.500 tomans on May 2, 2021.
But the fate of the Palayashi Yekom (First Refinery fund) was quite different from that of the Dara Yekom. The Passion and excitement about the Dara Yekom were still high were the government decided to offer the Palayeshi Fund (the remaining government shares in the four refineries in Tehran, Tabriz, Isfahan, and Bandar Abbas).
This time, the Ministry of Oil was the other side of the story, and the supply of the Palayeshi fund started with the disagreement between the Ministry of Oil and the Ministry of Economy and became an excuse for the market to collapse. The fund was launched, but at the same time the market collapsed.
So the price of each unit of this fund reached 5000 Tomans, which is half the price of the starting day of its offer. These days, the sales queues of this fund are still persisting, and each unit of this fund is priced at 7,000 Tomans.
Now the situation has reached a point where the Securities and Exchange Commission has decided to compensate the people who bought the ETF in order to revive the market and perhaps restore public confidence in the stock market.
But this is just an illusion because the people’s money has been lost and mostly extracted by the government’s officials and brokers. Usually, people do not expect to lose money in dealing with the government, and on the other hand, the government, like any other publisher, must support the stock it has offered for up to a year so that the share price does not fall below the daily price.
