Bank Saderat Gears Up to Resume TSE Trading

EghtesadOnline: Bank Saderat Iran is scheduled to hold its annual and extraordinary general meeting on Feb. 4, according to the bank’s announcement on Codal.ir.

News ID: ۷۸۱۴۶۹

24 January 2018

Two back-to-back meetings will see investors gathering to conclude the bank’s financial statements and pick its board of directors, Bourse Press reported.

This is good news for the investors of the $1.2-billion bank on Tehran Stock Exchange, considering that BSI’s shares have been frozen on the market for over 17 months now.

Bank Saderat, Mellat, Tejarat and Post Bank were blocked from trading on July 2016 when it was discovered that they had incurred huge losses in the first half of the last fiscal year (March-September 2016), according to Financial Tribune.

Other banks, including Parsian, Pasargad, Tourism, Sarmayeh, Resalat Qard al-Hasanah, Ghavamin, Saman, Ayandeh, Mehr Eghtesad, Day, Iran Zamin and Shahr, followed next.

The banks were barred from holding shareholder meetings due to the Central Bank of Iran’s mandate to update their balance sheets based on International Financial Reporting Standards–the latest international accounting procedures.

Bank Mellat and Tejarat returned to trading in early 2017 and shook the market, causing a massive drop in TSE’s main index, as well as the respective 37% and 33% drops in their own share values.

The two banks had published their updated balance sheets, which signified the losses they had incurred. This, combined with the investors’ frustration, led to a major selloff.

Mellat shares remain open for trading to date. Other banks have yet to see their ticker symbols reopen.