Investment bank UBS has described the controversy surrounding the reissuing of a report critical of the Baird government's electricity privatisation plans as "embarrassing" and admitted it had damaged the firm's reputation.

But the analyst who co-wrote the report in the middle of the election campaign after the Premier Mike Baird's senior staff contacted the bank has downplayed the incident as a case of a poorly worded headline.

"It was just an ill-advised, attention-grabbing headline," David Leitch, told a parliamentary inquiry into the lease of the electricity network, of the report which stated that the government's key election policy was "Bad for the budget, good for the state".

Mr Baird's senior staff contacted the chief executive of UBS, Matthew Grounds, on March 17 after Mr Leitch and his colleague Andrew Lilley issued the report.