Iran allows foreigners to buy $291 mln of shares
Tue Jan 24, 2006
TEHRAN, Jan 24 (Reuters) - Iran has given licences to three foreign investment groups to buy up to $291 million worth of unspecified shares on the Tehran Stock Exchange (TSE), the bourse said on Tuesday.
Foreign investors are allowed into the market as long as they gain a licence, but trading volumes of foreign money have so far been modest.
Tehran's stock market has taken some hard knocks in the last six months, battered by fears over Iran's disputed atomic programme and confusion about the policies of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
However, Iran hopes foreign traders will bring up to $4 billion into its stock market, mainly from the booming Gulf bourses where stock is starting to look pricy, the chairman of Tehran Stock Exchange told Reuters in December.
"Three Lebanese partners, Bahrain's Future Bank and a firm named Asian Capital Partners were allowed to buy up to $291 million of stocks in the TSE altogether," TSE spokeswoman Soheila Mostofi said.
The market declined to identify the three Lebanese who were granted permission to buy $50 million-worth of shares.
The right to buy the remaining $241 million-worth of equity was divided between Hong Kong-based Asian Capital Partners and Bahrain's Future Bank.
Future Bank is a joint venture that includes Iran's Bank Melli and Bank Saderat.
It was not clear what stocks the investment groups would choose to buy.
"Foreign individuals and firms are allowed to buy up to 10 percent of each listed company and they will have to keep their money in Iran for three years," Mostofi said.
However, she added dividends could be repatriated annually.
There are now 432 companies with a total capitalisation of $38 billion in the TSE.No figures were available for total foreign investment in the TSE to date.
The bourse weathered sharp falls from June to rally back above the psychological threshold of 10,000 points in November.
Analysts say tens of millions of dollars of Iranian capital has fled the country to feed booming real estate and equity markets in the Gulf, especially Dubai, in recent months.
Saudi Arabia's share index doubled last year while Kuwait's bourse was up more than 80 percent and Dubai stocks gained more than 110 percent.
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