S0321-50750000616-3-1

Article

Published

Issue №2

37-40

Iran is very interested in attracting foreign investments from Western countries: the presence of European investors in the Iranian market will allow the country to gain access to the latest technologies, information resources, and to help stabilize Iran's political relations with the West. The paper explores the Iranian stock market characteristics that are taken into account by the portfolio investors who consider buying shares at the Iranian stock market. In 2012, when international sanctions were introduced, many European companies, despite US pressure, remained on the Iranian market, although the majority - nominally, in the form of representations. This may serve as an confirmation of the attractiveness of the Iranian economy for Western investors and the desire of European companies themselves not to miss the unique investment opportunities. The article describes the peculiarities of the Iranian public companies, provides comparative data for the foreign public peers. The structure of portfolio investments largely reflects the distribution of foreign direct investments (FDI) already accumulated in the sectors of the economy of Iran, which, in turn, is largely determined by the large amount of natural resources (up to 2/3 of the total FDI) which make the mining and energy industries the most attractive for foreign investors. The Iranian stock market is well diversified, although, and, as Russian stock market, a large part of it is formed by the commodity companies. The paper draws the conclusion that buying shares by a foreign investor of the listed Iranian holdings may provide exposure to basically all sectors of the Iranian economy and that the international investment community is unlikely to ignore for a long time the emergence of a new - large and liquid - market.

01.02.2018

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