Home ownership to slide says Bank’s David Miles November 22, 2011 FIRST-TIME buyers are taking longer to save for large deposits, and so the number of owner-occupiers is set to fall, David Miles from the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee said in a speech yesterday. The transition to a society with fewer homeowners will be painful, he warned, but could have long-term benefits to the [...]
KKR CASHES IN AS BOOTS SOLD IN $16BN PLAN June 19, 2012 PRIVATE equity firm KKR yesterday confounded its critics by pulling off a deal to sell 45 per cent of pharmaceutical giant Alliance Boots to US firm Walgreens for an initial $6.7bn (£4.3bn). In three years Walgreens will have the option to complete the takeover and buy the remaining 55 per cent stake. The deal will create [...]
LAW FIRM OF THE YEAR August 5, 2012 SINCE City A.M.’s last awards ceremony in 2011, the legal sector has undergone one of the biggest shake-ups in recent years with the introduction of the Legal Services Act. The introduction of Alternative Business Structures (ABS) on 3 January was a formal acknowledgment of the ripples of change that have been spreading across the legal [...]
London needs a successful IPO of Direct Line Group June 18, 2012 WITH the future of Greece and perhaps the entire Eurozone hanging in the balance, now is probably not the best time to look towards a big initial public offering in the London market. IPOs themselves have had a dismal few weeks, what with Graff Diamonds postponing its listing in Hong Kong (the doubts over the [...]
PC sales crash as buyers shift focus to tablets January 14, 2013 PERSONAL computer sales plunged into decline for the first time in more than a decade last year as consumers switched to buying tablets, in a serious blow to PC manufacturers and software companies. Figures released yesterday by research firm Gartner showed that worldwide sales of PCs fell by 12.7m – or 3.5 per cent – [...]
Libor is fundamentally flawed and threatens London’s global position July 31, 2012 ONE OF the most famous security posters of the Second World War read “Loose Lips Sink Ships”. The idea was to curtail careless talk and prevent giving away information to the enemy. The Libor scandal has featured a different problem: too little careful talk. The basics of the scandal are well-known. The British Bankers’ Association [...]
Falling supply lifts London’s house prices May 20, 2012 LONDON’S house prices rose strongly in April, again outstripping the national market, industry data revealed today. Meanwhile a new study shows most parents support their children in buying houses, with 11 per cent giving over £100,000, underlining the tough state of the market. Average asking prices throughout the UK stayed unchanged in the month to [...]
BUY January 5, 2012 DIRECTOR, DOUGLAS & GORDON Q. Thinking prices would be going down last year I signed a one year rental. Values seem to be going up, should I buy or stay renting? A. It’s easy to stay in a rental if values are falling but if, like in London, they’re still going up, it’s difficult to [...]
PM: tackling public debt has proved harder than thought November 21, 2011 DAVID Cameron yesterday vowed to stick unflinchingly to the government’s deficit reduction plan as he promised new measures to boost the housing market and bring forward infrastructure projects, despite gloomy growth figures expected from the Office for Budget Responsibility next week. He admitted tackling the public debt had proved “harder than anyone envisaged”, in an early [...]
Brownonomics makes a shock return November 22, 2011 AT one point yesterday, I had to pinch myself to make sure I wasn’t having a nightmare. Is Gordon Brown still Prime Minister, I asked myself? The reason for my madness, dear readers, was the coalition’s dreadful neo-Brownite plan to part-guarantee 95 per cent mortgages. It was the kind of policy reminiscent of tax credits [...]