Blame game kicks off following BHS failure April 27, 2016 The heat was turned up on the two most recent owners of BHS yesterday, as insiders and politicians sought to place the blame for the retailer's collapse. Dominic Chappell, a former racing driver, bought BHS from previous owner Sir Philip Green last year for just £1. On Monday, the 88-year-old retailer was placed in administration, [...]
Letter from Alan Turing explaining the formula to win solitaire sells for $136,000 at auction February 11, 2016 The letter sold for $136,000 at auction (Source: RR Auction) A buyer has paid more than $136,000 (£94,000) for a letter sent by code breaker Alan Turing to his psychologist's daughter, which explains how to win at solitaire (not that solitaire – the board game, with marbles). The letter, sent by Turing to eight-year-old Maria Greenbaum in 1953, was described [...]
The Snaffling Pig co-founders talk GoPros, Dragons’ Den, jail and setting up a business with £500 August 15, 2016 This is the difference between pork scratchings and pork crackling: scratchings are cooked at one temperature, which is why they can be perilously hard. Crackling has two meanings: it’s the stuff on top of belly of pork; it’s also pieces of skin and fat cooked at a lower temperature with a short burst of more heat [...]
London house prices pull away from UK again June 1, 2015 HOUSE prices in the capital surged again in April, despite fears over taxes during the election, as London’s market remains detached from that of the rest of the UK. Figures from the Land Registry show the average price in London rose 2.3 per cent in April alone, and 10.9 per cent in the year, coming [...]
Another sign London’s ultra-high-end homes are losing their sparkle, as One Hyde Park designer Candy & Candy falls into a loss April 8, 2016 When the first homes were sold in 2012, its gleaming towers became the centre of a storm of criticism: now the interior designer behind controversial uber-prime residential development One Hyde Park have slumped into a loss. Figures filed with Companies House yesterday show interior designer Candy & Candy, which designed the communal areas and many of the apartments [...]
Top tips from the experts on how to get lots of people looking at your property online March 7, 2016 In the last 12 months, a slew of online portals have opened up to help you sell or lease your property online. These websites are certainly cheaper than enlisting an estate agent, but they also involve more legwork. Here are some fool-proof ways to get your property noticed online, whether you’re selling up on PurpleBricks.com [...]
London house prices skyrocket at double the national rate but sales fall January 29, 2016 London house prices rose at almost double the average rate for England and Wales last year, with the average price of property in the capital now totting up to a lofty £514,097. The Land Registry’s House Price Index in December showed that the cost of getting on to the ladder in London rose by 12.4 per [...]
“We were the first ever agents to sell a building through Twitter” – Meet the social media moguls dragging commercial property sales into the 21st century April 29, 2016 While residential estate agents have been dragged into the internet age, their commercial counterparts have – mostly – continued to resist such a move. There’s no Rightmove for office blocks, or warehouses. And it was this inherent conservatism that seemed to offer a great opportunity when three young surveyors decided to set up shop in [...]
High street banks plan to help Treasury offload £17bn of Bradford and Bingley loans March 1, 2016 Britain’s largest high street banks are planning to help the Treasury offload £17bn of Bradford and Bingley (B&B) loans. The proposal would see Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds, Royal Bank of Scotland, Nationwide and Santander guarantee around £17bn of financing to the purchasers of the loans. It emerged at the beginning of this year that a sizeable part [...]
Media bosses battle on the Thames with Google president Matt Brittin in Sport Relief’s CEO relay race March 6, 2016 Google's EMEA president Matt Brittin faced a very public grilling from the British media last month over the web giant's tax payments, but it was water under the bridge this weekend when he joined BBC bosses on the Thames for Sport Relief's CEO relay race. Chief execs and business leaders swapped their suits for sweatpants on Friday [...]