New Chief at SEO

EghtesadOnline: The High Council of Securities and Exchange on Wednesday appointed Majid Eshqi as the new managing director of Securities and Exchange Organization, the capital market regulator.

News ID: ۷۸۷۱۵۸

16 October 2021

Eshqi replaces Mohammad Ali Dehqan-Dehnavi, who was in the post since late January, the Securities and Exchange News Agency reported.

The new CEO is a former a deputy at the Iran Mercantile Exchange. He was a member of the board of directors of several investment and financial companies, including Lotus Parsian Investment Bank, Pouya investment Company and Pasargad Bank Brokerage.

Eshqi joins the list of Imam Sadiq University alumni appointed to senior economic and financial positions in the Raisi administration.

The council also appointed Mohsen Khodabakhsh, Alireza Naserpour, Hossein Faraj-Pour and Mehrdad Masoudi-Far to the SEO board of directors.

Some bourse council members were replaced on Wednesday after the government appointed five new members to the main  capital market decision-making body.

The new members include three financial experts, namely Mirfeiz Falah-Shams, Ali Saeedi and Ahmad Shabani, a commodity exchange expert, Rasoul Sa’di, and an energy exchange expert, Ali Emami, according to SENA.

The changes have been made as the stock market grapples with a bearish trend since the summer of 2020 and millions of retail investors are in deep in the red.

Under the uncertain climate the SEO has seen three managers in the past year and a half. This is while ten heads presided over the organization in its half century history.

Hassan Qalibaf-Asl, the predecessor to Dehqan-Dehnavi, tendered his resignation nine months after appointment amid turmoil in the bourse and protests by retail investors against his performance.

While volatility in the market was relatively less under Dehqan-Dehnavi’s watch, he too failed to restore the trust of millions of loss-making retail investors, many of whom joined the share market in the past two years.

Rising liquidity from new investors, share prices soared to historic highs in the first half of the previous fiscal year.

In this period, the benchmark of Tehran Stock Exchange, TEDPIX, jumped 300% in less than five months and crossed the historic 2.1 million points.

Triggered by huge sell-off by institutional traders, mostly in shares of companies owned or affiliated to the government, the bubble burst and the TEDPIX crashed in mid-2020 losing half its value.