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AEA Technology, the successor to the UK Atomic Energy Authority, was sold off
too cheaply when it was privatised in 1996 for £228 million, the National
Audit Office says in a highly critical report released last week. The Department
of Trade and Industry should have tested demand for shares at a wider range of
prices, the report says, and the methodology used by financial advisers to value
the company should have been independently reviewed. “A 10 pence increase in the
sale price of shares might have raised an extra £8 million of proceeds,”
says the report.