Iran’s Aseman Airlines plans IPO amid pandemic losses
A major Iranian airline company is planning to offer its shares in the country’s stock market as the aviation sector keeps grappling with the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic.
Aseman Airlines CEO Mehdi Qaderi said on Saturday that his company had started preparations to launch an initial public offering (IPO) in the local stock market.
Aseman, a subsidiary of Iran’s Civil Servants Pension Fund, flies to more than 50 destinations. The airline is Iran’s third largest by the size of fleet and staff.
Qaderi said Aseman’s IPO is meant to enable the company to boost its cash flow and increase its financial transparency.
He said the move had been coordinated with high levels of the government, including people in the Iranian parliament.
The announcement comes as Iranian airlines continue to struggle with pandemic fallouts, including lower demand for air travel and a series of government curbs meant to control the disease.
Iran’s civil aviation authority said on Saturday that it had suspended for three weeks a weekly flight by Taban Air after the company violated social distancing requirements onboard its planes.
The government agency also said that airlines in Iran had been provided with more 20 trillion rials ($83 million) in loans to help them cope with losses suffered because of the pandemic.
Aseman’s IPO plan comes amid hopes that new rounds of divestments by government-run companies could help boost trade in Tehran Stock Exchange (TSE) where main index TEDPIX has fallen by almost a half form highs seen over the summer.
TEDPIX rose by 1.03 percent on Saturday to more than 1.234 million points as the total value of the market reached over 49 trillion rials ($204.1 billion).
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