Malaysia's first privatisation, Telekom Malaysia, listed in 1990

Malaysia's telecom service began as a government department in 1946. By the 1980s the sector was rigid and short of capital, so the state decided to corporatise and then privatise it. In 1987 the department became Syarikat Telekom Malaysia, the country's first privatised entity.

In November 1990 the company was listed on the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange. The listing represented the largest-scale release of stock in Malaysian history up to then and made Telekom Malaysia the first public utility in the country to go public.

The decision was part of Malaysia's wider push to reduce the state's role in services, and it gave the telecom operator both capital and a public market to answer to. Listing also forced it to shift from administrative accounting to market discipline.

Telekom Malaysia listed on the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange on 7 November 1990, the largest release of shares in Malaysian history at the time

Corporatisation turned a department into a company with accounts and a board

Listing raised capital for network modernisation

A public share price introduced market discipline

It became the model for Malaysia's broader privatisation programme

Corporatising a government department and listing it can give a telecom firm the capital and the market discipline to modernise

Telekom Malaysia became the largest telephone company in Malaysia and a template for later privatisations. It later de-merged mobile and international units and shifted its revenue mix toward broadband and non-voice services.