Indivior IPO: Reckitt Benckiser splits off addiction unit November 17, 2014 Addiction treatment firm Indivior is set to join the FTSE100 as parent Reckitt Benckiser yesterday said it would float the business as a separate entity. However, the drug business may not remain listed in London for long – 80 per cent of its revenues come from the US, and its chief executive Shaun Thaxter expects [...]
Autumn Statement 2014: George Osborne scraps stamp duty slabs December 3, 2014 George Osborne's Autumn Statement unveiled a raft of measures in an intensely political statement aimed at luring voters back from Ukip during next year's general election. His centrepiece? A complete overhaul of stamp duty which, he said, will create savings for 98 per cent of home buyers. To cheers from the Tory back benches, Osborne [...]
Lloyds: 40pc of our top managers will be women in 2020 February 3, 2014 LLOYDS will hire 600 more female managers over the next six years, the bank’s chief will promise in a speech tomorrow. Antonio Horta Osorio will commit to ensuring 40 per cent of senior staff are female by 2020. Currently 28 per cent of the bank’s 5,000 senior staff are female, equating to 1,400 employees. The [...]
Mortgage lending soars. But will it all end in tears? December 12, 2013 Lending to first time buyers rose dramatically in October, according to the Council of Mortgage Lenders. First time buyers advanced 26,800 loans in October, the largest number of loans in a monthly period since November 2007. Strong buyer interest is strengthening activity in the housing market but limited supply remains a major problem. House prices [...]
Focus on Victoria: Grab a prime bargain in SW1 November 27, 2014 Victoria has long been a place of work, but it’s been a while since it’s been a place to live. Dominated by a mixture of grey government office blocks and its various transport hubs, it certainly doesn’t fit the desirable London village trend. But that may be about to change. Developer Land Securities [...]
Wages left far behind as house prices rocket February 10, 2014 THE AVERAGE salary in England would have grown by £29,000 in the past decade and a half if wages kept up with house price inflation, according to shocking new figures. Research by housing charity Shelter shows that average earnings would have been over £55,000, rather than just below £26,000, if pay had risen at the [...]
The Eurozone is not likely to survive its own Japanese-style lost decade November 13, 2014 BEFORE the fiscal and monetary stimulus of “Abenomics”, Japan was afflicted with a chronic economic sickness. Crippled by excess private sector savings, it fell into deflation in the 1990s, despite very low nominal interest rates. Today, it is often suggested that the Eurozone is experiencing a similar malaise. Prior to the autumn, the leaders of [...]
Countrywide predicts rosier full-year profit January 14, 2014 COUNTRYWIDE Holdings, Britain’s largest estate agent by revenue, has said it expects to deliver a full-year profit at the top end of expectations after revenues rose by a quarter in the fourth quarter of the year. The group yesterday reported an income of £171m in the quarter to 31 December and £584.8m for the full-year, [...]
Cost of a London home climbs to over £400,000 January 29, 2014 THE AVERAGE price of a London home broke through the £400,000 mark at the end of last year according to official figures published yesterday, while prices across the country continued to grow this month. Two separate surveys – released by the Land Registry and Nationwide – told a familiar story for the residential property market, with [...]
Soaring mortgage numbers renew fears of bubbly housing market January 15, 2014 (Laura Lean/City A.M.) The latest housing data is enough to fuel concerns that a "new housing bubble could develop in 2014", says IHS Global Insight's Howard Archer. Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) figures show mortgage numbers rising by 14.9 per cent in the year to November. There's a more troubling surge among first-time buyers. They [...]