An army of “Sids” – the name coined by advertising agency BMP for the private investors in British Gas – helped to keep 20 per cent of the UK stock market in the hands of small savers in the late 1980s. But the chance of a quick profit, and the losses of Black Monday, meant they failed to reverse the decline in private share ownership that began in the 1960s.
Figures from the National Audit Office show 4.5m people applied for the 425.5m British Gas shares offered to the public at £1.35 a share. About one in three were successful, creating 1.5m private shareholders in the company. By the end of the 1980s – after the privatisations of BT, BP, British Airways and BAA – individuals directly owned 20.3 per cent of UK equities, worth £104bn, according to the Office for National Statistics.