Scale of house price boom in prime London revealed January 20, 2014 AVERAGE house prices have doubled to over £1m in dozens of wards inside and surrounding London in the past decade, soaring despite the effect of the financial crisis. Research by property group Savills and the Property Database, based on Land Registry figures, shows the huge rise in prices recorded in the most sought-after parts of [...]
Online House of Fraser lift September 24, 2014 HOUSE of Fraser, the department store chain recently sold for £48m, yesterday announced adjusted earnings of £8.6m for the first half, boosted by a 29 per cent rise in online sales. Like-for-like sales rose 4.2 per cent to £542m for the six months to 26 July and the earnings figure was well up on the [...]
Kingston’s Bentall Centre up for grabs with £200m-plus price tag October 16, 2014 Bentall shopping centre in Kingston upon Thames has been put up for sale after one of its owners appointed advisers to sell its 50 per cent stake, with a price-tag of around £200m. It is one of the busiest malls in Greater London, with 700,000 square feet of space and 14m visitors a year from [...]
The Riverlight development in Battersea’s Nine Elms is welcoming residents November 13, 2014 Visitors to Riverlight, a new housing development on the south bank of the Thames, are confronted by a rather extraordinary, large artwork in the lobby. It layers towering elm trees, cranes from the docks, industrial waste and six, serrated glass towers lining the river bank. “History in the Making” by Royal College of Art [...]
Hammerson sells Mayfair HQ for £54m September 2, 2014 Hammerson has sold off its last remaining office building as part of a strategy set out two years ago to focus solely on retail property in the UK and France. The FTSE 100-listed company announced yesterday that it had sold its 50 per cent stake in 10 Grosvenor Street in Mayfair to its joint venture [...]
Budget 2015: Here are George Osborne’s best quotes plus his Budget speech in full March 18, 2015 George Osborne's final Budget during this parliament had few surprises but plenty of great quips, including – to the dismay of bookies everywhere – a quip about Ed Miliband's now-infamous second kitchen. Here's a selection of our favourites from today's big speech. (Source: Getty/City A.M.) (Source: Getty/City A.M) (Source: Getty/City A.M.) [...]
HMV returns to profit as Hilco rescue pays off September 28, 2014 HMV IS set to announce nearly £17m in operating profits during the 11 months after it fell into administration last year. Between 29 January and 28 December 2013 the music and DVD retailer saw sales of £311.2m, with its owner Hilco reporting every one of HMV’s stores is now profitable due to its restructuring programme. [...]
More sign of London house price woes? Foxtons share price falls as BC Partners halves stake September 5, 2014 Foxtons may have been the darling of the London property boom, but as house price growth in the capital has fallen, so have the estate agent's shares. BC Partners, the investor that had its fingers badly burned when it bought Foxtons off founder Jon Hunt at the top of the housing market in 2007 before [...]
The George Clooney effect: Venice’s Palazzo Molin del Cuoridoro is a rare medieval masterpiece November 13, 2014 Two months ago, Paris was overshadowed as the romance capital of the world by Venice. This had everything to do with George Clooney, Hollywood’s smoothest eternal bachelor, choosing the city to host his wedding to British human rights barrister Amal Alamuddin. The world’s media swooped on the waterlogged cultural hotspot and it received some [...]
Neil Woodford dumps entire HSBC holding September 1, 2014 Neil Woodford, one of the City’s top performing fund managers, has sold his entire stake in HSBC just 16 months after buying into the group. Woodford sold his holding due to the rising number of fines HSBC faced, a trend he dubbed fine inflation. He bought the shares in May 2013. HSBC was fined $1.9bn [...]