Flagship privatisation shelved

A flagship privatisation which was supposed to raise £500 million for the Treasury has been shelved because the Government could not find a buyer, reports today claimed.

Ministers are understood to have postponed indefinitely the sale of the Commonwealth Development Corporation, which lends money to projects in the Third World. Sources told the Financial Times the slump in the stock market and the big losses racked up by the agency had made it impossible to find a buyer. The agency, founded by Labour prime minister Clement Attlee in 1948, will now stay under the control of Clare Short's Department for International Development.