Iran: Investing in One of the Best-Performing Stock Markets (w/ Raoul Pal & Maciej Wojtal)

Real Vision: Finance & Investing

Real Vision

Investing, Business News, News, Business

4.1 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 27 February 2021

⏱️ 54 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The Interview- Real Vision founder and CEO Raoul Pal welcomes back Maciej Wojtal, founder and CIO of Amtelon Capital, an investment fund devoted to Iranian equities, to discuss how he's identified a diversified economy in Iran despite decades of sanctions and geopolitical risks. His interest in Iran was sparked by the nuclear deal brokered by President Obama in 2015 where he found a stock market that had been operating for more than two decades and included nearly 600 companies with $200 million in daily liquidity. His fund gives Western investors access to fast-growing businesses with low valuations in an array of industries—from utilities and automotive to commodities and agriculture. He shares his perspective on managing volatility as well as how the U.S.-Iran relations are expected to change under a new Democratic administration, and he weighs in on trade with neighboring countries in the Middle Eastern region. Key Learnings: Despite an overall economy that has been rapidly contracting because of U.S. sanctions and weak oil prices, Iran has one of the best-performing stock markets. Iran's stock market is dominated by retail investors with foreign ones making up less than half a percent of the market cap. Wojtal looks for companies that have pure export exposure, and he has been able to find companies with exports in the region that are usually not affected by sanctions. Recorded on Jan 12, 2021. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:57.0	There's a big, vibrant economy that's not connected to the outside world very effectively.
1:05.0	And was one of these opportunities that felt like Russia did in 1990, or the opening of China,
1:11.0	where it's not a third world economy, it's actually quite advanced.
1:16.0	But there's no investment capital into it, really.
1:19.0	And you're one of the few people who invest in the market.
1:23.0	What's your top-down thesis? Why did you start investing in Iran?
1:28.0	Well, I got interested in 2016 when the nuclear deal was signed.
1:34.0	And I never looked at it before. I mean, I knew obviously about Iran as in Persia and thousands of years of history.
1:42.0	I did trade many frontier markets from Vietnam to Kenya to Philippines and so on.
1:49.0	China Asia is very early, but Iran was always something that no one could touch.
1:53.0	So we didn't do anything. In 2016, I got interested.
1:58.0	I had never met the Iranian in my life prior to my first trip there, actually.
2:02.0	So I had no bias. I was absolutely, OK, let's just see what's there.
2:06.0	I realized that, OK, the stock market is, I mean, no, OK, stock market was later.
2:12.0	But the top-down macro picture was amazing.
2:16.0	So you have this big country, like right now almost 84 million people, where the demographic structure is beautiful.
2:23.0	I mean, median age, 30 years, you have probably 25 million people employed,
2:32.0	2.5 million unemployed, a couple of million students.
	...

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