Iran Guards group buys 50 percent stake in telecoms firm

A consortium affiliated to the elite Revolutionary Guards bought 50 percent plus one share in Iran's state telecommunications company for the equivalent of around $7.8 billion, Iranian media reported on Sunday. The move was a further sign of the Guards' growing influence in Iran since hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, himself a former Guardsman, came to power in 2005.
Revolutionary Guards played a key role in quelling street unrest that erupted after Ahmadinejad's disputed re-election in June.
The semi-official Mehr News Agency, citing an official of Iran's Privatisation Organisation, said it was the biggest trading of shares ever on the Islamic Republic's stock exchange.
It said two Iranian consortiums had been competing for the controlling stake in Telecommunication Company of Iran (TCI) and Etemad Mobin won. A third Iranian bidder was disqualified for security considerations, ISNA news agency reported.
The official IRNA news agency said Etemad Mobin belongs to the co-operative foundation of the Guards, a force that was formed after Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution.
Mehdi Aghdaie, deputy director of the Privatisation Organisation, said the value of the sold TCI stake amounted to around 10 percent of the stock market's total capitalisation.
Iran's economy is dominated by the state but the government has been seeking to speed up privatisations after the constitution was changed to encourage the sale of assets.
The then head of the Tehran Stock Exchange last year told Reuters several foreign firms were showing interest in buying a major stake in TCI.
But with foreign investors increasingly wary of Iran because of its nuclear row with the West, some analysts say assets to be sold off may simply end up being transferred within its vast public sector.
Iran, the world's fifth-largest oil exporter, is under UN and US sanctions for refusing to halt sensitive nuclear work. Shares representing 5 percent of TCI fetched $360 million when they were sold on the stock exchange last year, stock exchange officials have said.