Almost 20 years ago, Hongkong Telephone, as it was then called, did a deal with the Government that gave it a monopoly on local telephone calls to 1996 and on international calls to 2006.
This classic colonial example of non-positive interventionism for several years made the company's stock the largest in market capitalisation by a wide margin on our stock market, larger even than Hongkong Bank.
That's right, it was bigger than The Bank.
As a stitch-up of consumers, it was fortunately an early victim of the arrangements for the 1997 handover to the mainland, but it goes to show you how lucrative monopolies can be.
Now here is an interesting twist.
Did you know that Hongkong Land was the controlling shareholder of Hongkong Telephone when that deal was done? Well, it was. Hongkong Land, however, got the market seriously wrong at the time and bit off far more than it could chew. To avoid going bust, it was forced to sell its gem to Cable and Wireless.
