The new year started with some verbal threads from some president to Iran and some senseless potential espionage from in Germany which does not necessarily make our life easier. But there are also news, that look promising. Exactly like the news about privatization of the biggest banks in Iran
Mellat, Tejarat and Saderat to be released into freedom
With the news from the Financial Tribune, a usually very good informed and for me one of the most covering newspapers a little bit of spring visited me on my desk.
As recently reported, the IPO of the three banks is planned and no up to highest decision. That would mean, that at least officially the government steps back from the prominent position and let the banks work on their own. Even we all know that this is not true in the tight world of Iran – even it is not that true in any other country – the sign is important. It tells the story from a development of the Iranian governance moving away from the all controlling state to a more open and free power economy. Even that we know that in the background a lot of important decisions are made, it gives the chance to normalization and as the author said, hope for more divestures. Currently there is no information on IPO, but we will keep a eye on it.
The rational behind
It is interesting to think about the rational behind. Why is a government giving away its power within companies. As we see in China, they change society with orchestrating companies due to their governmental (short or long-length) owned stakes in the big companies. So we see also a shift toward own interest in US by the political driver “America first”, which also gave currently an economical push for the US.
In Germany we saw a lot of divesture in the past years but also a shift backward with the banking crisis.
So why is Iran going in this direction?
- To really push professionalism and performance by drawing back governmental influence and political decisions
- Reducing corruption on a silent way by taking away points of influence
- Give obvious signals to the world to lure more investments into country and thus reduce risk of re-initializing the sanctions
- Selling property for the sake of getting money, which is desperately needed in this country
Today I am not daring to give a best guess, but I hope that Iran is using this chance to become more and more not a state of Mullah but a country driving the economic and political improvement of the whole region in a smooth an gentle way. The year started with promising signals, hope for the best
Stay tuned
Yours K-Street6 Team