Biography|Colin Marshall — 125 Pence and the First Day of Dealings

People remember the slogan and forget the price.

On 11 February 1987 British Airways shares began dealings on the London Stock Exchange at 125 pence, paid in two instalments of 65 pence and 60 pence.

Hansard records the flotation date, the offer price, and the advisory cost to government of £28.5 million excluding VAT and stamp duty.

A written answer on 23 February 1987 set out the allocation of 720.2 million shares: employees and pensioners 62.7 million, the UK public 255.7 million, UK institutions 260.2 million, overseas offers 118.6 million, with smaller parcels for foreign interest applications and loyalty-bonus retentions.

The offer price valued the whole book at about £900 million.

Marshall was chief executive.

Lord King remained executive chairman.

Trading opened that Wednesday afternoon in London and that morning in New York.

The building that handled the London tape was the Stock Exchange Tower on Old Broad Street, the concrete tower occupied from 1972 until the exchange left for Paternoster Square in 2004.

Do not pin the later square.

The 1983 photograph on this card shows the Tower as it stood four years before the sale.

Marshall was knighted the same year.

The airline's later purchase of British Caledonian belongs to a different month and a different memory.

What happened here on 11 February was simpler: a state carrier became a listed company at a published price, on a dated first day of dealings.

Photo: Richard Hoare, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons / Geograph — Stock Exchange Tower, 1983