Iran Aseman Airlines announces plans to IPO

Iran Aseman Airlines (EP, Tehran Mehrabad) is planning on going public despite adverse market conditions and economic sanctions, chief executive Mehdi Qaderi has announced. In a statement, Qaderi said the process for listing the carrier’s shares on the stock market, presumably that in Tehran, were now underway. “We are looking to make arrangements for the company to enter the stock exchange,” he said. “By entering the capital market, the company can attract all the desirable financial resources it needs.” To that end, Iran Aseman has already engaged local financial services firm Atieh Capital about the requirements for listing and the Islamic Consultative Assembly about its reasons for pursuing an IPO. “In these meetings, the problems affecting the airline industry were discussed, especially the issue of providing the necessary financial resources for the development and equipping of Aseman Airlines’ fleet,” he said. Aside from boosting its cashflows, Qaderi said Aseman’s IPO would also increase its financial transparency. He did not disclose the size of the shareholding the airline’s owner, the Iranian Civil Servants Pension Fund, would relinquish. Last year, Kish Air (KIS, Tehran Mehrabad) had planned to list on Iran’s over-the-counter (OTC) market but eventually deferred it indefinitely. Chief Executive Farzaneh Sharafbafi, who had overseen the plan, has since been replaced by Seyed Javad Hashemi Tehrani. At present, Iran Aseman’s fleet entails six A320-200s (one active), one inactive A340-300, two inactive ATR72-200s, two inactive ATR72-500s, four B737-400s (one active), and eight Fokker 100s (six active). Before the Trump administration’s withdrawal from the JCPOA nuclear accords and the reimposition of heavy economic sanctions on Iran, Aseman had planned to lease seven A320-200Ns from an undisclosed Irish firm and had even signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Boeing for the purchase of sixty B737 MAX aircraft including thirty firm and thirty optioned jets. In what appears to be a light at the end of the tunnel for Iran’s beleaguered airline industry, Robert Malley, US President Joe Biden’s newly appointed Iran coordinator, has signalled a willingness to see the US and Iran return to JCPOA compliance albeit in a staged manner. Earlier this year, Malley’s Crisis Group think-tank, for which he is chief executive and president, said the United States should be prepared to “rescind Trump-era sanctions pending IAEA confirmation that Iran’s nuclear activity is fully compliant with its JCPOA obligations.” The parties could even stagger the steps in parallel, the report said.