ABSTRACT
The most important aim of privatization was to improve the performance of the public corporations. Shareholders were attracted by the post-issue premiums on privatization shares, which averaged 33 per cent. Privatization was not part of the Thatcherite vocabulary during the years of Conservative Opposition. There were many different motives for privatization, some more political than economic and some more important than others at different times or in different sectors. They were: to reduce the role of the state in the economy and restore powers of decision to the individual, to improve productive efficiency by promoting better management of public assets, whether in industry or in housing, and to encourage employee share ownership so as to bring about better industrial relations. Sir Denis Rooke, the powerful chairman, traded his support for privatization for the retention of the existing integrated structure. Apart from the monopoly utilities, the privatization of a wide range of industrial enterprises was relatively simple and uncontroversial.
