Question

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, who made the decisions and on what basis were the decisions made on how many shares would go to each priority investor, each institutional investor and each retail investor in respect of the privatisation of Royal Mail.

The Government set the overall allocation policy with the aim of getting the right balance between longer-term, stable investors, retail investors and shorter-term investors who provide liquidity in the market.

Allocations were made to a number of institutions who in the early stages of engagement were willing to place non-binding orders despite the risks attached to the IPO such as the industrial relations situation. These investors gave us confidence that there was sufficient demand to proceed with the IPO.

We had nearly three-quarters of a million retail applications so their allocations were scaled back as they were for institutional investors. Given this high demand, Ministers decided to prioritise smaller investors and put in place a cut-off above £10,000 and give everyone below that the same number of shares. Around 95% of retail investors were allocated shares.