As per a bylaw issued by the SEO’s board of directors on Monday, “listed companies must list land and buildings they own and publish them during their general and extraordinary meetings,” the SEO News Agency reported.
The SEO has given listed companies one month to publish the list on the Codal website, an information website on which listed companies release financial reports.
The move is in line with other recent measures taken to improve transparency in the share market. Capital market authorities say transparency in financial reporting is a necessity in a market that is growing as new investors join and the number of listed companies, which now surpasses 700, increases.
Iran’s capital market has been under criticism in recent years for lack of transparency wherein people with inside information make undeserved profit. One persistent complain is that companies either refuse to report their finances or publish it with delays lasting months and years.
In a similar decision in July, the stock market regulator instructed listed companies to publish their earnings per share (EPS) on a regular basis.
EPS is calculated as a company's profit divided by the outstanding shares of its common stock. The resulting number serves as an indicator of a company's profitability. EPS is a widely used metric to estimate corporate value.
Five groups of listed manufacturing companies have been ordered to provide EPS reports, namely chemical, base metal, mineral, petroleum as well as cement and plastic industries.