Khatam al-Anbia Construction Headquarters, the IRGC's major engineering arm & one of Iran's largest contractors employing about 25,000 engineers and staff on military (70%) and non-military (30%) projects worth over $7 billion in 2006. Oriental Oil Kish (oil and gas industry) Ghorb Nooh Sahel Consultant Engineering Ghorb Karbala Sepasad Engineering Co. (excavation and tunnel construction) Omran Sahel Hara Company (excavation and tunnel construction) Gharargahe Sazandegi Ghaem Imensazen Consultant Engineers Institute (subsidiary of Khatam al-Anbia) Fater Engineering Institute (subsidiary of Khatam al-Anbia) In September 2009, the Government of Iran sold 51% of the shares of the Telecommunication Company of Iran to the Mobin Trust Consortium (Etemad-e-Mobin), a group affiliated with the Guards, for the sum of $7.8 billion. This was the largest transaction on the Tehran Stock Exchange in history. IRGC also owns 45% participation in automotive Bahman Group and has a majority stake in Iran's naval giant SADRA through Khatam al-Anbia. The IRGC also exerts influence over bonyads, wealthy, non-governmental ostensibly charitable foundations controlled by key clerics. The pattern of revolutionary foundations mimics the style of informal and extralegal economic networks from the time of the Shah. Their development started in the early 1990s, gathered pace over the next decade, and accelerated even more with many lucrative no-bid contracts from the Ahmadinejad presidency. The IRGC exerts informal, but real, influence over many such organizations including: Mostazafan Foundation (Foundation of the Oppressed or The Mostazafan Foundation) Bonyad Shahid va Omur-e Janbazan (Foundation of Martyrs and Veterans Affairs) As an elite force with great economic assets it has developed into what some observers call an "untouchable élite" and somewhat isolated in Iranian society. According to a "former senior Middle Eastern intelligence officer", the Guard and their families "have their own schools, their own markets, their own neighborhoods, their own resorts. The neighborhoods look like a carbon copy of Beverly Hills." Former Bank Ansar and Bank Mehr Iranian were run by corps IRGC Cooperation Bonyad until merger with state Bank Sepah. Analysis Mehdi Khalaji of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy argues that the IRGC is "the spine of the current political structure and a major player in the Iranian economy." The once theocratic state has evolved into a garrison state, like Burma, whereby the military dominates social, cultural, political, and economic life, protecting the government from internal rather than external opponents. Greg Bruno and Jayshree Bajoria of the Council on Foreign