Iranian fund manager Turquoise Partners has raised $2.8m for its $5m domestic mutual fund to invest in the Tehran Stock Exchange (TSE).   

The fund was launched on 1 August and raised $2.8m during a subscription period that ran for ten days until 10 August. It raised about $500,000, excluding the seed investment, by the close of the first day.

The fund has performed well…We are already more than halfway to achieving our target of raising $5m

Turquoise officially began investing the fund on 17 August.

“The fund has performed very well so far and received a lot of interest,” says Ali Mashayekhi, head of investment research at Turquoise. “We are already more than halfway to achieving our target of raising $5m within a year.”

Given the positive response to the fund, Turquoise is now confident that it will launch its planned $50m fund next year.

“This fund was aimed at testing the market appetite,” says Mashayekhi. “But we are now very optimistic that we will hit the $5m target so we will be looking to obtain the larger fund licence.”  

Iran’s Securities and Exchange Organisation (SEO), Iran’s financial regulator, provides licenses for two fund types – small funds are classified as $5m or below, while large funds can be anything up to $50m in size.

The SEO approved the launch of mutual funds in early 2008. Today, there are nearly 40 registered funds of this type, which are managed by brokerage firms and investment banks. They range in size from between $1m to $50m.