– After the recent directive allowing Iran Central Bank to get involved with the nation’s FX market, now the cabinet members is to expand the scope of CBI activities even more to include not only FX policies but also monetary ones. Doing as such, the CBI has now granted 3 new instruments to balance the currency/monetary needs:
– Continuing the administration policies with regards to the settlement of its liabilities by issuing Islamic Treasury Bills, two new issues of ITB have been listed on Iran Fara Bourse waiting in line to be offered publically. These issues published on June 10 and 14 by Islamic Republic Government and will be matured in 6 and 7 months respectively. The issue values of these new bills are IRR 33,500,000 mn (USD 757.92 mn) and IRR 35,000,000 mn (USD 833.3 mn) divided into securities with IRR 1,000,00 par.
– Tax organization of Iran ratified a bylaw lowering taxes for equity trades to only 0.1% on Iran Stock Market. Previously there was a0.5% tax imposed on trades upon the sale of securities, stocks and stock rights, which now has lowered to the minimum possible level in order to maximize the participation of involved parties.
– Iranian food industry is to utilize the capacity of Iran Capital Market covering its financing needs by issuing Islamic Corporate Sukuks. Tomorrow, Kourosh food industry co. (a private joint stock firm) will publish IRR 500 bn (USD 11.8 mn) worth of Murabaha Sukuks on Iran Fara Bourse. The securities are going to be mature in 2 years and have an annual yield of 16%. Mellat Investment Bank is the underwriter and book runner of these securities while Mellat Bank will act as the guarantor to this issue.
– Today a new piece of Islamic T-Bills was supposed to be offered on Iran Fara Bourse. Being the second issue of the new Islamic treasury bills IPO round on Iran Debt Market, the TB291 has a value of IRR 10,000 bn (USD 235.7 mn) and will be matured on Aug 14, 2019. The older issues with close maturity dates are TB181 and TB191 which has a YTM of 26.22% and 25.89% respectively. However, the new offer did not price at today’s session. The below table demonstrates issues with highest yields on the last trading session:
– Aiming at expanding its Euro-based interactions, the head of the Securities and Exchange Organization of Iran announced the consideration of launching Euro dealt Kish International Iran Stock Exchange within the next 2 months in the exchange High Council; this market is to host foreign companies, mostly from countries with less cooperation with the US, including adjacent neighbors and European trade partners as well as domestic players.
– Following its strategic plans in regards to developing new underlying assets in derivative contracts, the first Saffron Futures Contracts for delivery in September will be launched on Iran Mercantile Exchange since this Wednesday. Over the past months, negotiations have been held with practitioners in the agriculture space, bodies involved as well as brokerage firms in Tehran and Mashhad. Each contract size will be 100 grams of saffron as the underlying asset with daily price fluctuation range of 3%.
– Today a new piece of corporate Sukuk is to going to be underwritten on Iran Fara Bourse. The new Ijarah Sukuk securities will be issued by Saba Naft construction and engineering Co and have a nominal yield of 15%. With a maturity of 48 months and coupon frequency of 3 times per year (quarterly), SN1Q1 securities worth IRR 920 bn (cUSD 21.9 mn).
– A banking official stated that charging higher fees on banking services (mostly transactions of POS, etc.) can lead to lowering interest rates on granted facilities; in fact, he said that in case this process continues for 3 years, the interest rate might come down to 14% and the rate on facilities would also reduce to below 10% in Iranian banking sector. The current imbalanced situation for on-account risk-free deposit rate (20%) and banking facilities (around 28%) led most banks to their incompetence.
– The Securities and Exchange Organization (SEO) of Iran’s Issuers Supervision Division released the free float index of listed companies on the Tehran Stock Exchange (TSE) and Iran Fara Bourse (IFB) for the one-year period ended March 20th. Over the said period, 7 new companies entered Iran Stock Exchange, including HiWeb, Omid Investment Bank and Shafa Pharmaceutical with their free float rates standing at 6.4%, 3.58% and 0.59%; this event, however, could not exert any significant effect on the total free float index and its average remained in the 20% area. The following table shows the highest and lowest ratios among the first 10 listed companies: