Khedive Ismail sold Egypt's Suez Canal shares to Britain for £4 million in 1875, and the Ottoman sultan deposed him four years later

Ismail succeeded his uncle Said as ruler of Egypt in 1863 and inherited his public and private debts. Under Said, Egypt had granted the concession for the Suez Canal to a French company, and the Egyptian ruler held about 44 percent of the company's shares. Ismail borrowed abroad for infrastructure. By 1875 Egypt owed £100 million. On 25 November 1875 he agreed to sell 176,602 Suez Canal Company shares to the British government for £4,000,000, less the value of 1,040 shares that Britain had counted on but that were not there. Egypt also agreed to pay Britain 5 percent a year on the purchase money until the shares' dividend coupons, already pledged to the canal company, were freed. Britain became the company's largest shareholder overnight. The sale held off the crisis for about a year. In 1876 Ismail accepted Anglo-French supervision of Egypt's finances. In 1879 Britain and France had the Ottoman sultan depose him in favour of his son Tewfik. Ismail died in 1895. On 26 July 1956 President Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalised the Suez Canal Company, the British-French company that had run the canal since 1869. Israel, Britain and France invaded and accepted a UN ceasefire on 6 November 1956 under United States pressure. Egypt has owned the canal company since.