About 285 billion rials ($6.7 million) worth of shares of public companies were fully transferred to the private sector. The remaining 739 billion rials ($17.5 million) worth of public enterprises saw 80% of their shares transferred while 20% remained with the state, ILNA reported.
Data available on IPO’s website indicate that 631 companies are to be privatized by the end of the current fiscal year.
Over 280 of the listed companies to be privatized were left over from the previous fiscal year, according to Financial Tribune.
Fiscal 2016-17 was set to be the last year for privatization, as the 10-year deadline introduced by the law came to an end. But the deadline has been extended as sales proved more complicated than expected and a large number of assets remained unsold.
Many of the companies in the privatization list are either underperforming or posting losses, making them a hard sell. IPO has had difficulties in the past in pricing some of these assets, as their value and potential returns are closer to zero.