Royal Mail makes strong market debut

The British government’s decision to privatize its postal service opened to a strong start Friday morning. Stock in the Royal Mail was up 3.1 percent on its first day of trading after an initial public offering.

But not everyone in Britain sees this morning’s jump in the stock prices as a sign of success.

“The government said it’s gotten as much as it could out of the sale of the Royal Mail, but the fact is, the shares have increased so much in just the first couple of minutes trading that many of the critics of the privatization are saying it’s been sold off for far less than it could have got,” says Jonty Bloom, a BBC business correspondent. “They say they could have got hundreds of million of pounds more for the government if they put the price up a bit.”