Trophy deals help fuel profits at Knight Frank September 28, 2014 SECURING trophy buildings for cash-rich investors helped Knight Frank deliver record sales and profits last year, the property agency said today. The firm, which is owned by its partners and operates 335 offices in 52 countries, saw profits jumped by 33 per cent in the year to £136.6m in the year to 31 March compared [...]
Lord Anderson’s old house up for sale in Westminster October 20, 2014 Stamped on the wall outside number four Lord North Street is a marking urging residents to proceed to their bomb shelters when the air raid sirens rang out. It’s an eternal allusion to the illustrious past behind one of Westminster’s largest homes currently on sale in one of the borough’s most famous roads. In her [...]
Lastminute.com sold for £76m to Swiss travel firm December 16, 2014 TRAVEL site Lastminute.com, founded at the height of the dot.com boom in 1998, has been sold to Bravofly Rumbo Group in a £76m deal. The sale will see current owner, US-based Sabre, swallow a big loss, having bought the holiday site for £577m in 2005. Swiss company Bravofly made the winning bid yesterday, following a [...]
New Look sells French arm Mim to newly-created business Main Asia September 5, 2014 New Look has sold its French business Mim for an undisclosed sum, to a Hong Kong-based company about which relatively little information has been made available. Main Asia (HK) was established earlier this year to acquire Mim, and the main shareholders and management are “active in apparel and textile manufacturing and trading, along with [...]
Luxury in the air at Earl’s Court’s Lillie Square October 20, 2014 The designers behind the north hall of Covent Garden Market and the Met Bar unveiled a new collection of luxury penthouses in Earl’s Court to bring it up to the standard of its illustrious west London neighbours. The penthouses are part of the Lillie Square development, a residential scheme that’s the centrepiece of the regeneration [...]
Barratt boss warns of labour shortage September 10, 2014 The boss of Britain’s largest housebuilder Barratt Developments warned yesterday that a shortage of skilled workers could prevent the country from delivering the homes needed to tackle housing crisis as the company reported a doubling of full-year profits. Mark Clare said the lack of skilled workers – from bricklayers to architects and plasterers – is [...]
Bank of America’s $17bn mortgage settlement is biggest banking fine ever August 21, 2014 Bank of America was yesterday hit by the biggest banking fine ever, as US authorities charged the lender $16.6bn (£10bn) for mortgage fraud. The bank gave mortgages to customers who could not afford them, then packaged up the toxic loans and sold them on to investors and the US government under the pretence that they [...]
Football Comment: Footballers may be multi-millionaires, but they are still at risk of financial pitfalls too November 10, 2014 Ex-England keeper David James’ recent bankruptcy shows stars aren’t immune IF YOU find the sums of money swirling around in football unpalatable, then stand by your beds because, in the next 10 years, it will look like chicken feed. The growth in the bottom line of Europe’s elite clubs is now being driven by two [...]
As UK house prices soar, sales hit highs last seen in boom years August 8, 2014 Housing sales are back at levels last seen at the hight of the boom in 2007, LSL Property Services said today. Prices have been surging over the past two years, particularly in London. And the number of sales has now caught up with the booming demand for property. In July, 90,000 homes were sold in [...]
Thinking bigger: My Voucher Codes founder Mark Pearson talks Fern Britton and young tech entrepreneurs November 16, 2014 While we’re talking, it suddenly dawns on Mark Pearson that it’s his company’s eighth birthday. “It’s definitely around now,” he laughs, raising his empty plastic water cup in the air. In June of this year, Pearson sold My Voucher Codes, as part of his parent company Markco Media, to global mobile money technology provider [...]