In 2006 we were commissioned by the Joint Lead Managers, State and Federal Governments to undertake the website services required for the proposed Snowy Hydro privatisation.

We utilised our background in completing similar tasks successfully such as the Telstra 2 share offer and simultaneously at the time of Snowy Hydro also working on the upcoming Telstra 3 share offer.

Importantly for the Snowy Hydro online mandate there was a desire from the lead banks and government to streamline the offer process via online.

For example for the pre registration period of the offer retail investors were asked via the website if they wanted to receive a hard copy offer document or be dealt with purely online via an electronic offer document and application process.

While the proposed offer itself ceased near the end of the pre registrant period it is worth noting that two thirds of those coming via the website elected to be dealt with purely digitally meaning they would not have received a hard copy offer document.

A key learning we took out from the Snowy Hydro process was that given the nature of Government privatisations is a political issue more attention would be warranted in monitoring public opinion and activist activity online to help provide to the key advisers a fuller picture of ongoing market and public sentiment.

At the time, social media networks were in their infancy, however today, social media can form a powerful influencer of public opinion and so our advice for any future Government privatisations is that social media monitoring and potentially campaign execution should best be considered as part of the overall communications strategy.

Getting back to the Snowy Hydro process itself our existing online share offer platform IPOsoft® was utilised while its executive team provided ongoing advisory and execution services to the various advisers to the offer. This included the lead banks, Government representatives, legal team, communications advisers, offer document designers, and the share registry provider.

We had been commissioned to deliver all phases of the transaction online including an accessible website with electronic offer document and application process. We were also commissioned to manage search engine marketing and email alerting to online registrants.

And once the offer was ceased at the end of the pre registration period we were utilised to help wrap up the project by communicating these key matter to the public via the website and alerting pre registrants from the website by email as to the offer being rescinded.

It is worth noting that nearing the end of the pre-registration phase of Snow Hydro when the offer was ceased the website had taken 78% of the total pre-registrant volume while 60% of website pre-registrants selected online as their preferred method of receiving the offer document meaning they would not receive a hard copy offer document in the post.