Starting in mid-2003, six investment banks - three of which are Thai firms - were appointed as advisers for Egat's privatisation and they began their work on the deal. They are Phatra Securities, SCB Securities, Tisco Securities, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, and Citigroup.

Egat wanted to float at least 1.2 billion shares to the public, but its initial public offering was postponed a dozen times due to technical, fundamental and political problems.

The country's largest electricity generator aimed to sell IPO shares at Bt25-Bt28 apiece which would, if successful, have raised Bt31.3 billion to Bt34.86 billion of fresh funds.

These six advisory companies expected to get combined fees of about 2 per cent of the funds to be raised from the privatisation. As no less than Bt30 billion was expected to be raised, the companies were anticipating about Bt600 million between them. They usually get equal advisory fees in a big deal like this so each would have scored Bt100 million.

However, with yesterday's ruling by the Supreme Administrative Court, this money vanished.

According to a source close to the deal, each firm has invested several million baht over the past three years preparing for the Egat sale.

Phatra and Morgan Stanley were assigned to undertake a valuation of the deal. They would have calculated the valuation based on certain models. However, over the past three years, they have had to change their valuation according to changing factors, including oil prices, the electricity price structure, outstanding debts, and foreign exchange rates.

SCB Securities and JP Morgan were assigned to undertake the corporatisation - turning the state-owned agency into a public company. Their task, including conducting the public hearings, seems to have been the biggest headache of all. Tisco Securities and Citigroup were assigned to conduct the filing of the Egat IPO and all the associated documentation.

Jiwamol Kanoksilp

The Nation