In 1875 following debt and financial crisis, the Egyptian ruler was forced to sell his shares in the Suez Canal Company to the British government under Benjamin Disraeli. Britain was a willing buyer and she obtained 44% of the shares for less than £4 million. The majority of the funding for the construction of the thirteen year old canal was from French investors. Britain saw it as a threat to her Eastern Empire but was after its completion its biggest user. With the 1882 invasion and occupation of Egypt, Britain took effective control of the country as well as the canals.