It is 25 years since the public offering of a 50.2 per cent stake in British Telecommunications. Never before had a major state-owned utility been transformed into a public company with dispersed share ownership. The flotation, five times larger than any previous offering on the London Stock Exchange, was not the product of a carefully worked out Thatcherite scheme to roll back the frontiers of the state. It came about almost by accident.

Britain’s telecoms infrastructure had fallen far behind. The problem was reconciling the need for large investment in digital switching with rigorous macroeconomic targets for public borrowing. Various wheezes to escape this dilemma were thought impractical (a later generation of accountants would be more relaxed about off-balance sheet financing). The only solution seemed to be the sale of a majority stake.

To read this report in The Financial Times in full, see:
www.ft.com/cms/s/0/788d77c6-d3b2-11de-8caf-00144feabdc0.html