If there is one word that best describes the current state-owned asset sales programme, it would probably be ‘compromise’.

In 2008, when the Government was faced with the challenge of tackling rising levels of public debt (projected at 36 per cent of GDP for 2013) in a low-growth economy, all the while nursing a balance sheet heavily overweight on A-rated electricity assets, the choice was clear: sell one to pay the other.

And when hounded by voters’ fears of foreign ownership, again the obvious concession was to partially float the electricity companies, while offering dangling juicy incentives in the form of share bonuses, buy-now-pay-later, and price-cap schemes to secure retail investor participation.

Compromise, as described above, implies the best of both worlds, but unfortunately the reality is that this kind of trade-off never comes easy.

The anti-privatisation camp, rightly or wrongly, have taken glee in pointing out that the Government is selling off assets that generate higher dividend returns than the equivalent interest rate on our public debt.

Critics have also noted retail investors will be paying for these assets twice, since they’re technically owned by all New Zealanders anyway. Plus, those who don’t participate are having part of their national wealth snatched away from them.

Meanwhile, free market advocates aren’t entirely happy either. They’ve pointed out the Government’s majority stake will likely limit the flexibility of these firms because they won’t be able to raise capital through an equity issuance the way fully privatised firms can.

Indeed, it could be argued that the efficiency drag of a single shareholder can already be seen, with Contact Energy and TrustPower (two private companies with diverse shareholder bases) offering the highest returns on equity in the sector. Returns from the state-owned firms lag behind these two companies by a noticeable margin, even though they’ve been operating as private entities for over a decade.