Haha, those two things are not the same. Generally governments pay a premium for companies that they could probably pick up out of bankruptcy and then later the

Haha, those two things are not the same. Generally governments pay a premium for companies that they could probably pick up out of bankruptcy and then later they sell them off via a set of bankers who take a massive cut and undervalue the sale. A Great British example was Royal Mail, IPO'd at 330p per share, by the end of the day it was trading at 458p. It jumped 38% on the first day and eventually peaked at 87% over the original IPO price in the next few months.