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Eurasia
May 19, 2017 www.intellinews.com I Page 20
pectedly citing health reasons. In the weeks after his resignation, IBA unravelled.
The bank’s borrowing and lending modus operandi, which had consisted of borrowing in foreign cur- rency and lending domestically in manats, had be- come insupportable following a 35% depreciation of the manat in February. The cost of servicing the bank’s external debt reportedly increased by 20% straightaway after the depreciation. In the ensuing months, a snowball effect of further depreciations and defaults on loans pushed the rate of non-per- forming loans in IBA’s asset portfolio up to 80%.
Azerbaijani authorities took over IBA, increasing their share in the bank from 51% to 81% by inject- ing some AZN600mn (€324mn) worth of capital
to recapitalise the lender and absorbing AZN10bn worth of bad assets through state financial insti- tution Aqrarkredit.
Iran vote a two-horse race as Tehran mayor withdraws
bne IntelliNews
Iranians going to the polls on May 19 found the presidential election has essentially become
a two-horse race again after Tehran mayor Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf withdrew from the contest to support fellow conservative Ebrahim Raisi, the main challenger to incumbent Hassan Rouhani, who has been at the forefront of normalizing ties with the West.
State television, reported Reuters, showed lengthy queues forming outside polling stations in several cities and said 56mn Iranians out of the more than 80mn-strong population were
Officials then started talking about privatisation. In November, Rufat Aslanli, chairman of Azerbaijan’s financial markets regulator, said that the govern- ment was mulling an early privatisation for the lender as soon as it cleaned up its balance sheet. But the process lacked transparency and many were left in the dark about the extent of the prob- lems at IBA. Fitch Ratings, upon finding out that Baku had actually spent three times more than it had originally anticipated on cleaning up the lend- er’s balance sheet, downgraded the bank’s viability rating to ‘f’ in November 2016.
The IBA scandal landed not only Hajiyev in jail – he is being tried for embezzlement and abuse of pow- er while in detention – but also some of the most prominent businessmen in Baku, who had been accused of taking out loans from IBA that they had no way of repaying.
Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf seen while registering to run in the upcoming May 19 election.
eligible to vote. Polls close at 6:00pm local time, although the authorities often extend voting into the evening. Ballot counting will start at midnight and the final results are expected within 24 hours of the polls closing, the semi-official
Fars news agency said.
Qalibaf, a 55-year-old former Republic Guard air force commander and police chief, managed to turn the May 19 election into a three-way contest with a performance that had him only slightly trailing Raisi in the opinion polls.