THE JR East affair will probably go down in history as how not to list a utility.
In the light of the Singapore Telecom listing and further privatisations to come in the region it is worth looking at what happened.
A Tokyo-based brokerage which wanted to remain anonymous reported the events that helped to make the listing of JR East a disaster.
The brokerage said the JR East listing on Tuesday was supposed to resurrect the Japanese stock market. ''Unfortunately it looks as if the opposite is the case,'' it said.
Before the listing, salesmen were rolling up their sleeves to peddle shares in the former state railway in an issue expected to raise around 600 billion yen (about HK$43.7 billion), it said.
''This must succeed as we see it as the biggest event in the securities industry this year,'' said a Daiwa Securities broker before the launch.
