Three things Boris wants to build at Heathrow instead of a new runway March 31, 2014 The Mayor of London has been a vocal supporter of a new airport to the east of London, so much so that one of the options was at one stage nicknamed Boris Island. Today, Boris Johnson has set out three possible uses for Heathrow if it were to close and make way for an East [...]
Quintain sells Mitre Passage for £17m as disposals reach £500m February 12, 2014 QUINTAIN has sold its 50 per cent stake in Mitre Passage in Greenwich for £17.1m, adding to a string of disposals already made in the last 18 months. The sale to Tristan Capital was announced alongside its interim management statement yesterday, Quintain said it had made £31.6m of disposals in the period from 1 October [...]
Nearly 80pc of economists believe that Bernanke’s QE1 will be seen positively by the history books January 28, 2014 It's often said that it's hard to find agreement among economists. That's taken to be especially true when you approach the more heavily politicised areas of the discipline – such as macro policy. So that 78 per cent of economists agree with this statement is quite a surprise: Informed postmortems of Ben Bernanke’s Fed chairmanship [...]
Here’s how Argos made a fierce comeback at the end of last year January 16, 2014 Argos has become the latest digital winner at Christmas, as more companies label their online offering the strand that brought them festive sales success. Internet and mobile technology sales buoyed the high street shop's Christmas performance, despite a "challenging consumer environment", owner Home Retail Group said this morning. In a separate statement, the parent company confirmed [...]
Moneysupermarket energy switching revenues jump 200pc January 14, 2014 A sharp increase in people changing energy providers has provided a staggering revenue boost to price comparison site Moneysupermarket's energy switching service. In a statement this morning, the web-based business said that revenues from switching were up almost 200 per cent in the fourth quarter, in the wake of the price hike announcements from energy firms [...]
Inside Track: Jenkins should settle Barclays’ £50m fine so he can move on February 12, 2014 RAISE £6bn from investors and hand more than half of it back to employees and investors six months later: as a formula for managing a corporate balance sheet, there’s a certain novelty in Barclays’ approach. But for someone who has choreographed efforts to rehabilitate a company’s image as carefully as Antony Jenkins, this has been [...]
Osborne’s recovery will not end the debate over the impact of austerity September 9, 2013 GEORGE Osborne yesterday presented his analysis of why the UK economy has turned the corner in recent months, arguing this demonstrated advocates of a “Plan B” had been proved wrong by events. He identified two candidate explanations for the slowdown of 2011-12. One school of thought he called the “fiscalist” analysis. According to this view, [...]
Sir Howard Davies promises to rise above Boris Johnson’s “vulgar abuse” over London airport analysis January 20, 2014 Sir Howard Davies plans to "rise above this vulgar abuse" from Boris Johnson as he works to pick a site for a new runway or airport. "I completely dismiss what the mayor has said about our report. It’s completely at variance with anyone else … As far as the mayor's concerned we don’t seem to [...]
Galliford Try housing sales reach record high after strong season November 19, 2013 GALLIFORD Try said yesterday that housing sales had leapt by 21 per cent to a record £585m after a strong autumn selling season. The British housebuilding and construction group said £485m of those sales were for the current financial year to 30 June 2014, up 33 per cent on last year. Sales prices have increased [...]
The Treasury will gain nothing from property tax hikes June 25, 2013 A S THEY consider a “back-door” mansion tax and another increase in stamp duty in today’s Autumn Statement, George Osborne and Vince Cable should take a quick look at a dramatic drop in tax receipts after the last Budget. In March, stamp duty was hiked to 7 per cent for people buying property over £2m [...]