Government to sell Telstra shares

THE federal government plans to sell its majority share of Telstra to retail investors and will offer existing shareholders a guaranteed allocation of discounted shares to encourage them to buy. The government will sell $8 billion of Telstra shares, about one-third of its stake in the telco. Analysts are predicting the shares could be sold for between $3.30 and $3.50 – the lower estimate being the price investors paid when Telstra was first listed nine years ago.