A major European automotive manufacturer was considering setting up a manufacturing facility in Iran and needed in-depth knowledge on the local market.
Diligencia delivered several phases of consulting work, starting with an overview of the market for foreign brand vehicles, how they are imported, pricing dynamics and any regulatory / local content issues that they would be confronted with. Given their intention was to manufacture in country, we then identified a broad sweep of potential local partners with the network, technical and financial capacity to partner with our client and deliver their plans. Following a shortlist being agreed with our client, the final stage was to benchmark a set of companies against a number of criteria including industry experience, political / business connections, distribution capabilities, governance practices and manufacturing capacity.
Unfortunately, the client put these plans on hold when the possibility was raised of sanctions being re-imposed on Iran, so we did not proceed to the final due diligence stage.
Note: Diligencia is still well placed to conduct research and gather data on Iranian businesses, and we continue to see demand from clients for this service despite the reinstated economic sanctions of 2018.