The long business arm of the Iranian state

Further reading

• Iran's pivotal moment • Modern Middle East Bank shows there is no escape from sanctions • Ayandeh's DIY mega-merger sets template for Iranian bank consolidation

These assets and those of his followers were gathered together as a bonyad, or charitable foundation, originally called the Bonyad Mostazafan and now called the Mostazafan Foundation of Islamic Revolution. It was to be invested in a range of economic sectors with a proportion of profits set aside “for the miserable people: that’s what Mostazafan means,” says Behzad Golkar, CEO at Sina Financial & Investment, one of the holding companies within the Foundation.

He’s very specific about the word miserable, as opposed to poor: it has a focus on providing for the disabled and oppressed.

It is an enormous enterprise. Golkar says the foundation is made up of 200 individual companies split across 19 holding companies; Sina is just one of those holding companies yet includes a bank, two brokerages, mutual funds, an insurer and a leasing business, with plans to build an investment bank well underway.

The other 18 cover pretty much every imaginable area of the economy, and between them the foundation companies employ 27,000 people directly and thousands more indirectly.