Mobarakeh Steel Reopens After Five Months and Sits 10.6% Below Its Pre-War Price; Its P/E Is Half the Sector's (Wednesday, August 12, 2026)

The ticker for Mobarakeh Steel Isfahan (FOLD), the Tehran Stock Exchange's second-largest company by market value, reopened on Saturday, August 8, 2026 (17 Mordad 1405), after nearly five months of suspension. As of Wednesday, August 12 (21 Mordad), its price stood at 2,278 rials, about 10.6% below its last real trade before the suspension (2,549 rials, February 25, 2026). That drop came in a year the company posted a 33-year production record and net profit near 100,300 billion tomans (about 1,003 trillion rials). Its price-to-earnings ratio (P/E, the share price divided by annual profit per share) now sits at 4.4x, less than half the base-metals sector's 10x average. Yet the company's managers have still not disclosed a precise, final figure for the war damage to the plant.

Background

Mobarakeh Steel was one of roughly 42 tickers left out of the Tehran Stock Exchange's controlled reopening on May 19, 2026 (29 Ordibehesht 1405); together those tickers make up nearly 35% of total market value, and, as Sahmino's earlier report on war-damaged tickers covered, their reopening was conditioned on full disclosure of the damage, the reconstruction cost and a financing plan. In that same window, Mobarakeh Steel restored Furnace No. 8, which had been damaged in the attack, in about 45 days instead of the four months first estimated, relying on in-house engineering. Even so, when the ticker finally reopened on August 8, the market set its opening price about 9.6% below the last pre-war level; the gap has widened slightly since.

The reopening came just 11 days after the company's annual general meeting (AGM) on August 2, 2026 (11 Mordad 1405), where, as Sahmino's earlier analysis showed, managers paid out only 10.6% of profit per share as cash dividend (55 rials of 518 rials) and named war damage as the direct reason.

The numbers

One caveat on the last row: the $18 billion figure is the steel industry's cumulative estimate of lost output from power and gas shortfalls over four to five years, not a war-damage figure specific to Mobarakeh Steel. The Iran Steel Producers Association's own chairman stressed that not all of the industry's profitability decline (from about 33% to 6% at large listed steelmakers over six years) can be attributed to energy alone.

Drivers

First, there is a gap between "production coming back" and "pricing confidence coming back." Mobarakeh Steel restored its damaged furnace in about 45 days, faster than first estimated, yet the market set the reopening price roughly 10% below the pre-war level. That gap shows restored output alone was not enough to restore the old valuation.

Second, energy costs are squeezing profit. The 14,000-billion-toman forgone profit from energy restrictions, alongside the jump in the company's own gas price (which the CEO told the AGM reached 16,500 tomans by Dey 1403, winter 2024-25), is the exact reason managers cited for holding back the dividend.

Third, the exact scale of the damage remains undisclosed. The exchange regulator has conditioned the reopening of damaged tickers on full disclosure, but Mobarakeh Steel has not yet published a rial or dollar figure for the physical reconstruction cost; the only Codal filing so far addresses the energy-related forgone profit, not the direct damage cost. Until that disclosure is complete, the risk of a capital increase to fund reconstruction, and the dilution of earnings per share that would follow, still hangs over the ticker.

Outlook

This section is analytical judgment, not investment advice. FOLD's current 4.4x P/E is based on the trailing twelve months' earnings per share, a year the company itself says ran under the shadow of war and energy restrictions. The path of its forward P/E for fiscal 1405 hinges on at least four variables: first, the final damage and reconstruction figure, still undisclosed, which could trigger a capital increase and dilute earnings per share; second, the trajectory of industrial gas prices, which would further squeeze production margins if they keep rising; third, how durable the ceasefire proves, which Sahmino's earlier analysis of war-damaged tickers identified as the dominant non-technical variable for this group of stocks; and fourth, global steel overcapacity, which the CEO told the AGM could exceed 700 million tons by 2028 and could further compress export margins. If full damage disclosure arrives without a large capital increase, today's discount to the sector could look like an opportunity; if dilution is coming, the same discount becomes more justified.

Bottom line

Mobarakeh Steel closed fiscal year 1404 with record production and exports and net profit near 100,300 billion tomans, yet the market reopened its ticker, after five months of suspension, about 10.6% below the pre-war price, and now trades it at a 4.4x P/E, half the sector average. If one line from this report should stick, it is this: until the exact war-damage figure and its financing path are formally disclosed on Codal, this price discount cannot confidently be called "cheap" or "fair." For now, it is simply unresolved.

What to watch

• Mobarakeh Steel's "Group A" Codal disclosure on the exact scale of the damage, the reconstruction cost and the timeline back to full capacity.
• The ticker's price and trading volume in coming sessions, against its roughly 1.567 billion-share monthly average.
• Any capital-increase announcement to finance reconstruction, and its effect on earnings per share.
• The trajectory of industrial gas prices through the 1405 cold season and its effect on margins.

Track the live FOLD price on Sahmino's price page, and the AGM's resolutions on Sahmino's events calendar; for a comparison of P/E dispersion within a similar industrial group, this analysis is a good starting point.