http://www.businessinsider.com/this-7-billion-deal-explains-who-really-runs-iran-2013-12
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (L) and Revolutionary Guards commander Mohammad Ali Jafari salute while reviewing a military parade in the city of Yazd, about 560 km (350 miles) south east of Tehran January 4, 2008.
(Reuters) - In the fall of 2009, two of Iran's most powerful entities teamed up to participate in the largest deal in the history of the country's stock exchange.
The partners were the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Iran's elite military unit, and a multi-billion dollar business empire known as Setad that is controlled by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The Guards and Setad formed a consortium to bid on a controlling stake in Telecommunication Co of Iran, or TCI, which had a near monopoly on landline telephone services. The partners won the stake for $7.8 billion, Iran's largest privatization ever.
The deal stirred up controversy when Iranian media reported that another bidder for TCI had been eliminated the day before the sale by the regulator, the Iranian Privatisation Organisation, or IPO. The man then heading up the IPO was Gholamreza Heydari Kord Zanganeh. One local news organisation dubbed him "Mr. Privatisation."
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