As the Ministry of Finance selected a shortlist for the Japan Tobacco share sale of just over ¥713bn (US$8.92bn), bankers were already eyeing up the spoils that could follow in the form of a ¥2trn-plus IPO of Japan Post Bank.

The MoF is conducting its first beauty contest in a decade and as a result is taking a meticulous approach, such that success on JT would leave a firm extremely well positioned for the deals that follow. But at present the MoF is exasperated at banks' focus on fees rather than on ensuring that the deal succeeds.

"Fees only have a weight of 10% in the selection process," said one MoF official. "Much more important is the strategy to make sure the stock price holds up after the selldown."

Bankers have, however, continued to moan about the "ruinously low" fees in a market with a standard 4% fee on equity offerings. Still, the banks only have themselves to blame as they were asked to submit proposed fees in their initial proposals.