The privatisation of Harwell-based AEA Technology could have provided the taxpayer with an extra £160m if the Department of Trade and Industry had phased in the sale, according to a report published by MPs today.

The public accounts committee report said the privatisation, the last by the former Tory Government, was "flawed in a number of ways". and did not represent "the best deal for the taxpayer."

In September 1996, the DTI sold its shares in AEA Technology, the engineering business established out of the UK Atomic Energy Authority. The shares were priced at 280p and the sale raised £224m. But on the first day of trading, the stock market valued the shares at 323.5p, a premium of 43.5p, compared with the DTI's anticipated premium of 20p.

The report said: "The committee questions the department's view that the sale can be regarded as a success.

"The larger than anticipated rise in share price on the day after the sale, and the subsequent substantial increases over and above the increase in share prices of companies in the same sector, suggests that the department could have obtained more value for the business they sold.

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