Lord Sugar has hit out at the Government's "bargain basement" sale of Royal Mail and demanded an inquiry to find out who has profited from it.
The Labour peer and TV's Apprentice star made his comments yesterday as Government business spokesman Lord Popat said the banks who helped with the sale could receive up to £18.4 million in fees.
The Government has come under fire after the shares soared from the offer price of 330p when the majority of Royal Mail was sold off this month to at times more than £5.
Lord Sugar told the House of Lords that the Government had appointed the banks UBS, Lazards and Goldman Sachs for their "so called expertise in understanding the correct timing and pricing of the flotation of the Royal Mail".
He demanded from Lord Popat: "Why did these so called experts sell the stock at such low levels and get it totally wrong to such an extent that the stock rose by 33% the day afterwards and since then 54% on the issue price?
"Bearing in mind other reputable banks had come on record giving a valuation of £5 billion, why were these banks ignored and what will you be doing by way of an inquiry in finding out who the lucky institutions were that underwrote this bargain basement sale?"
Meanwhile, it has been confirmed that Business Secretary Vince Cable is to make a second appearance before the Commons Business Select Committee to be questioned over the privatisation, on November 20.
The committee has also written to investment bank Lazard, which advised on the sell-off, requesting that its representatives also appear.
It emerged yesterday that activist hedge fund The Children's Investment Fund Management (TCI) has amassed a 5.8% stake in Royal Mail.
It has bought 58.2 million shares, worth around £290m at today's 499p closing price.
Shadow trade minister Ian Murray said: "David Cameron's Royal Mail fire sale has seen the vast majority of shares going to big money investors in the City."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article