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In what is a marquee assignment, Scotiabank and RBC Capital Markets have been selected to act as the so-called active bookrunners for the initial public offering of Hydro One Inc – deal that could raise as much as $2 billion.

That IPO will be the largest so far this year and the largest in Canada since the $2.49 billion sale by Manulife Financial Corp. in 1999.

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Those two firms were chosen to lead the sale of 15% of the province of Ontario’s distribution and transmission arm in a beauty contest – whose fairness was overseen by Denis Desautels, a special adviser to the Minister of Energy and former Auditor General of Canada. Ontario invited Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Barclays Plc and Canada’s six biggest banks in April to pitch for a role in arranging the IPO.

The decision probably doesn’t come as a surprise: Scotia Capital was the leading underwriter of equity in 2014 according to information compiled by the Financial Post. In most years RBC is the leading firm.

But the bookrunners will be earning a lower fee than is the norm for placing an initial public offering.

The fees have been set at one per cent for institutional investors and three per cent for retail investors.

Those fees are the same as when a company issues preferred shares.