Iran’s largest ‘private’ bank is run by Supreme Leader’s business empire

Parsian Bank, one of the largest banks in Iran to call itself private, has for years been run by Setad, the business empire controlled by the supreme leader, which appoints its directors and borrows from it through its own companies, an Iran International investigation shows.

Setad, formally the Execution of Imam Khomeini's Order, is one of the largest conglomerates under the supreme leader's control. It was built on property confiscated after the 1979 revolution and has been under US sanctions since 2013.

Through the bank, Setad runs hundreds of companies. One is Parsian Exchange, whose leaked emails, examined by Iran International, showed it operating as an arm of the Islamic Republic for moving money, with the participation of several other sanctioned banks.

As of October 2026, the bank's large shareholders are companies that on paper have nothing to do with Setad. Setad's tracks run through their public filings¹.

The name "Execution of Imam Khomeini's Order" has never appeared on the list of shareholders attending Parsian Bank's general meetings. Yet when Tadbir Investment Group, itself tied to Setad, bought a block of 28 billion Parsian shares in 2025, it wrote in its own financial statements that it had bought them from Setad². That block was about 18 percent of the bank.

Tadbir Investment Group audited financial statements, fiscal year ending March 2026, page 46

The stock exchange website does not show the details of the purchase. What it shows is this: the holdings of several companies fell, and at the same time Tadbir's holding rose by about the same amount³.

Tadbir's financial statements for the year ending March 2026 say in plain words how the bank is run: "The management and administration of the shares, and the appointment of the natural-person members of the bank's board of directors, are carried out by the Execution of Imam Khomeini's Order"⁴.

Tadbir Investment Group audited financial statements, fiscal year ending March 2026, page 24

Tadbir Investment Group is itself a Setad holding company, although its website describes it as "an investment company." Its auditing firm, Mofid Rahbar, addressed the group's audit report for the year ending March 2024 to "the esteemed head of the Execution of Imam Khomeini's Order."

The same statements record that a proposed capital increase "was not approved, in view of Setad's policies"⁵.

Tadbir Investment Group audited financial statements, fiscal year ending March 2024, pages 1 and 55

The bank's own audit committee has had Setad's people on it.

In 2015 and 2017, two of the committee's "independent" members came from Setad. Mostafa Shahriari was deputy for finance and administration at Tadbir Economic Development Group, a Setad company⁶.

Javad Shokrkhah, the committee's chairman since 2017, has chaired and sat on the board of trustees of Refah va Ta'min-e Atiyeh Omid, the welfare institute for Setad's employees⁷.

Setad's unnamed stake in the bank

Setad has held Parsian Bank by indirect means, and it has moved the shares around. Some of the moves were out in the open. Others were less so.

In the open, Setad moved whole companies. Sarzamin-e Pahnavar-e Mehr and Takavaran-e Shargh both belonged to Setad, and both held shares in Parsian Bank. Setad sold them, in 2020 and 2025, to Tadbir Investment Group, its own holding company⁸.

Less openly, it moved the companies' shares. Padideh Afarin-e Shafaq, Refah Omid, Faraz-o Forud-e Eqtesad-e Ayandeh, Mehrafarinan-e Doran and Tose'e Eqtesad-e Farda each held less than five percent of the bank⁹.

Trading records show their holdings falling step by step between June and December 2025. In all, about 31 billion shares left their names. Over the same months, the holding of Tadbir Investment Group, Setad's holding company, rose by 28.4 billion shares¹⁰. The table also shows Takavaran-e Shargh's holding falling between November 2025 and January 2026.

In its financial statements for the year ending March 2026, Tadbir wrote that it had bought those 28.4 billion shares from Setad¹¹.

When Setad sold all of Sarzamin-e Pahnavar-e Mehr to Tadbir in October 2020, the auditor recorded that Tadbir had paid the price "to the credit of the account of the Execution of Imam Khomeini's Order, the ultimate owner"¹².

Tadbir Investment Group audited financial statements, fiscal year ending March 2026, pages 36 and 46

The result of these transfers: at the end of March 2026, Tadbir held 29.53 percent of the bank. Three other Setad-linked companies, plus Tose'e Eqtesad-e Farda, which had sold part of its stake, held a further 12.58 percent between them¹³.

Through this group of companies, Setad held more than 42 percent of Parsian Bank.

Tadbir Investment Group audited financial statements, fiscal year ending March 2021, page 35

The companies of Building 18

Most of the companies in whose names Parsian shares were held are registered at one building: No. 18, Fifth Street, Khaled Eslambouli Street, Tehran¹⁴.

Many of them have also been used to manage the Telecommunication Company of Iran and the mobile operator Hamrah-e Avval (Mobile Communications of Iran).

They share an auditing firm, Mofid Rahbar, and their managers have sat on one another's boards again and again. On paper they were separate shareholders. In practice they were run from one address by one group of people.

Takavaran-e Shargh was a Bahman Group company until 2012. From 2013 its board and its address moved to this building¹⁵.

Three of its managers, Parviz Aghamohammadi, Akbar Hosseinzadeh Gharabaei and Masoud Vali, sat on its board throughout those years. In June 2025, Tadbir Investment Group bought the company from Setad¹⁶.

In September 2025, the same three men became the board representatives of Tadbir Investment Group, Iran & Shargh and Sarzamin-e Pahnavar-e Mehr¹⁷.

Setad's entry: from Iran & Shargh to seats on the board

Setad came onto the bank's board one step at a time from the late 2000s. At the general meeting of January 23, 2011, Iran & Shargh and Tadbir between them held about 19.5 percent of the votes in the room, and two more Setad companies won board seats: Refah va Ta'min-e Atiyeh Omid, the welfare institute whose board of trustees is chaired by Setad's deputy for coordination¹⁸, and Tose'e Eqtesad Ayandehsazan¹⁹.

In 2013 the United States sanctioned Iran & Shargh and Tose'e Eqtesad Ayandehsazan as Setad companies²⁰.

In 2012 and 2013 the bank's chief executive, Ali Soleimani Shayesteh, sat on the board as the representative of that same sanctioned company²¹.

By February 2015, with a declared stake of about 10 percent, Setad held four of the board's seven seats²². The bank's vice-chairman, Aref Norouzi, would later become acting head of Setad.

From 2017 the seats went to individuals rather than companies²³, and it is no longer possible to tell from the record which shareholder each board member represents.

Was Parsian Bank ever an independent private bank?

Parsian was never a fully private bank, in the usual sense of the word, that Setad later took over. The bank's registration documents show it was founded from the start by individuals trusted by, and tied to, the Islamic Republic.

The founders and first directors were announced on September 6, 2001²⁴. They were former managers of state and semi-state networks in the 1980s and 1990s.

In the board's second term, from 2006 to 2008, Iran Khodro came in with one seat at first: in July 2006, Gostaresh-e Sarmayeh-gozari-ye Iran Khodro, the carmaker's investment arm, took a board seat at Parsian Bank, represented by Naser Beikzadeh Marzbani²⁵.

Beikzadeh Marzbani had been an engineer in the defense industries²⁶. He later joined the board of Persia Khodro, the company that sells BMW cars in Iran, as the representative of Foad-e Rey, a company of the Astan-e Shah Abdol-Azim shrine foundation, which was overseen by Mohammad Mohammadi Reyshahri, a former intelligence minister, and Ali Shariatmadari, a deputy intelligence minister in the 1980s. Persia Khodro was handed to Setad in 2013.

What Setad gets from the bank

Owning Parsian Bank has paid off for Setad. Records from 2022 to 2026 show the bank lent, in foreign currency and in rials, to at least four Setad companies: the refinery Palayesh-e Parsian Sepehr, Tadbir Energy Development Group, the drilling company Tose'e Haffari-ye Tadbir²⁷ and Iran & Shargh Leasing²⁸.

The bank's largest claim is on Palayesh-e Parsian Sepehr, which at the end of March 2026 owed it about 477 trillion rials ($183 million at the open-market rate)²⁹.

The bank also acted as the agent for about $1.06 billion in foreign-currency loans from the National Development Fund, Iran's sovereign wealth fund, to the refinery.

Taken as a whole, the records show Setad running this outwardly private bank through its shareholdings and its choice of the board.

Setad gains from the bank's subsidiaries, among them the moving of foreign currency through Parsian Exchange. At home, it has used the bank to lend large sums to its own subsidiaries and affiliates.

Footnotes

1. Tehran Stock Exchange Technology Management Co. website, list of Parsian Bank shareholders above one percent, October 2026 (Mehr 1405)

2. Tadbir Investment Group, audited financial statements, fiscal year 1404 (ending March 2026), page 46, note 21-4

3. TSE Technology Management Co. website, list of Parsian Bank shareholders above one percent, June 2025 to January 2026 (Tir to Dey 1404)

4. Tadbir Investment Group, audited financial statements, fiscal year 1404, page 24, note 4-1-3

5. Tadbir Investment Group, audited financial statements, fiscal year 1402 (ending March 2024), page 1, auditor's transmittal letter; page 55, note 30-4

6. Parsian Bank, audit committee and internal audit unit profile, row 2; Tadbir Investment Group, audited financial statements, fiscal year 1404, page 11, note 1-1

7. Parsian Bank, audit committee and internal audit unit profile, row 1; changes to the board of trustees of Refah va Ta'min-e Atiyeh Omid, Official Gazette, January 16, 2008 and November 10, 2008 (chairmanship), and April 22, 2021 and May 11, 2021 (vice-chairmanship)

8. Tadbir Investment Group, audited financial statements, fiscal year 1399 (ending March 2021), page 35, note 18-5-1; fiscal year 1404, page 36, note 19-1-2

9. TSE Technology Management Co. website, list of Parsian Bank shareholders above one percent, 2025 (1404)

10. TSE Technology Management Co. website, list of Parsian Bank shareholders above one percent, June to December 2025 (Tir to Azar 1404)

11. Tadbir Investment Group, audited financial statements, fiscal year 1404, page 46, note 21-4

12. Tadbir Investment Group, audited financial statements, fiscal year 1399, page 35, note 18-5-1, and the independent auditor's and statutory inspector's report

13. Parsian Bank, management discussion and analysis report, fiscal year 1404, page 10, shareholder composition

14. Change of address of Takavaran-e Shargh, Official Gazette no. 20074, February 2, 2014, and no. 21950, July 26, 2020; change of address of Mehrafarinan-e Doran and Tose'e Eqtesad-e Farda, Official Gazette no. 21950, July 26, 2020; change of address of Padideh Afarin-e Shafaq, Official Gazette no. 21272, March 18, 2018; change of address of Ideh Gostar-e Doorandish, Official Gazette no. 22519, July 12, 2022; change of address of Negin-e Ganjineh-ye Iranian, Official Gazette no. 22531, July 27, 2022

15. Changes to the board of Takavaran-e Shargh, Official Gazette nos. 20019 and 20020, April 23, 2013; change of address, Official Gazette no. 20074, November 23, 2013

16. Tadbir Investment Group, audited financial statements, fiscal year 1404, page 36, note 19-1-2 (contract dated June 10, 2025)

17. Changes to the board of Takavaran-e Shargh, pursuant to the extraordinary general meeting of September 17, 2025 and the board meeting of September 18, 2025, Official Gazette, October 21, 2025 and December 25, 2025

18. Amendment to the articles of association of Refah va Ta'min-e Atiyeh Omid, Official Gazette no. 23083, June 26, 2024 (board of trustees' resolution of November 22, 2023)

19. Resolutions of the extraordinary general meeting of Parsian Bank, January 23, 2011

20. US Federal Register, vol. 78, no. 120, page 37665, row 10, and page 37666, row 37

21. Resolutions of the annual general meetings of Parsian Bank, May 17, 2012 and May 21, 2013

22. Resolutions of the annual general meeting of Parsian Bank, July 22, 2015, shareholders present; composition of the board of Parsian Bank, meeting of February 9, 2015

23. Resolutions of the extraordinary general meeting of Parsian Bank, January 16, 2017

24. Notice of incorporation of Parsian Bank, Official Gazette no. 16480, October 7, 2001

25. Changes to the board of Parsian Bank, Official Gazette, October 23, 2006 (annual general meeting of July 18, 2006)

26. Autobiography of Naser Beikzadeh Marzbani

27. Tadbir Energy Development Group, audited financial statements, fiscal year 1401 (ending March 2023), auditor's report; page 79, note 34-1-1-4

28. Tadbir Investment Group, audited financial statements, fiscal year 1403 (ending March 2025), page 79, note 45-1-1

29. Parsian Bank, management discussion and analysis report, fiscal year 1404, page 44, section 3-4, table of related-party transactions