State-owned property valued at $115 billion was sold by Margaret Thatcher's administration

Thatcher became the UK's first female prime minister in 1979 after the election of a Conservative government. One of the main tenets of the Thatcherian school of neoliberalism was the privatization of state-owned enterprises.

She stated at a gathering of young conservatives in 1976 that "our goal is to provide the kind of economic background which permits private initiative and private enterprise to flourish for the benefit of the consumer, employee, the retiree, and society as a whole."

The UK had accumulated a sizable portfolio of government-owned businesses in the energy, manufacturing, telecommunications, and transportation industries after World War II. British Cable & Wireless, British Telecom, Britoil, British Gas, British Steel, British Petroleum, and British Airways were all sold off under Thatcher's presidency.

Two analysts estimated the combined value of the assets sold between 1979 and the early 1990s to be £45 billion in 1995. Today, that amount would be equivalent to roughly £87.16 billion, or $115 billion.