It may have enabled the Indian government to squeeze the maximum amount of money out of its 5% sell-down in India's largest power producer, but aside from that, the use of a so called French auction to sell the shares seems to have replaced one flawed system with another.
The final allocation has yet to be announced, but according to sources, the government will raise approximately Rs84.8 billion $1.8 billion from the sale of NTPC shares, which was completed last week. All the shares on offer were secondary and resulted in the government's stake in the company falling from 89.5% to 84.5%.
Aside from boosting the proceeds for the government, the French auction system, which...
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