Property tech start-up Settled wins backing from lastminute.com investor and launches £1m fundraise April 4, 2016 An online property platform aiming to shake-up the traditional estate agency model by encouraging landlords take control of their own sales has launched a £1m funding round, after winning the backing of one of the UK's leading tech investors. Settled was launched last year by brother and sister team Gemma and Paul Young, who wanted to create an online business that put aspiring homeowners directly [...]
Now Halifax says UK house prices dropped last month – but rose almost 10 per cent in the year to February March 3, 2016 It was a day of two house price indices today, and while Nationwide was insistent that house price growth was flat between January and February, figures from Halifax have shown prices fell by1.4 per cent. But Halifax's house price index, released today, also showed prices rose 9.7 per cent from last February – and were up [...]
Economic think tank EY Item Club warns over UK’s single engine consumer spending economy April 18, 2016 Consumer spending will continue to be the main driver of the economy this year, though if business investment fails to return in 2017 growth could falter, the EY Item Club think tank has warned. Consumer spending is expected to grow by 2.5 per cent in 2016, but slow to 2.1 per cent in 2017 as [...]
Five reasons to think twice before investing in buy-to-let March 31, 2016 You hear it all the time. A relative or a friend has just inherited some money. They want to make it work for them. So they make what seems like an ironclad financial decision: they invest in buy-to-let. Why is this so common? After all, property ownership is a relatively recent trend. Well, rental properties [...]
Housebuilder share prices jump as analyst turns totally positive on UK housebuilders April 22, 2016 Shares in housebuilders have suffered in recent months, partly thanks to analyst Liberum, which in November published a note suggesting shares in UK housebuilders were "overvalued". But this morning, the analyst turned (slightly) bullish, saying it was "less cautious" about housebuilders' share prices. Back in November, Liberum's Charlie Campbell downgraded Barratt, Persimmon and Taylor Wimpey to "sell", saying [...]
High street banks plan to help Treasury offload £17bn of Bradford and Bingley loans March 1, 2016 Britain’s largest high street banks are planning to help the Treasury offload £17bn of Bradford and Bingley (B&B) loans. The proposal would see Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds, Royal Bank of Scotland, Nationwide and Santander guarantee around £17bn of financing to the purchasers of the loans. It emerged at the beginning of this year that a sizeable part [...]
Retail sales run out of steam in February despite half-term and Valentine’s Day boost March 8, 2016 RETAIL sales slowed in February after a strong start to the year that was boosted by the January sales. Like-for-like sales rose by 0.1 per cent last month compared with February in 2015, when they had increased 0.2 per cent, according to the British Retail Consortium (BRC) and KPMG’s monthly data released today. The February [...]
Arcadia boss Sir Philip Green could face grilling from two separate MP committees over BHS’ demise and £571m pension shortfall April 27, 2016 Update: The most recent owners of BHS will be called in front of MPs, according to reports. MPs on the business, innovation and skills (BIS) select committee will call them in to give evidence, Sky News has reported. Meanwhile, the Work and Pensions select committee has said it will call former BHS boss Sir Philip Green [...]
As the fate of Tata Steel’s UK operations hangs in the balance, is the writing on the wall for the British steel industry? March 30, 2016 The fate of Port Talbot steelworks and thousands of jobs lies in the hands of the government today with investors showing little appetite for buying the UK operations of Tata Steel outright. Prime Minister David Cameron will chair an emergency meeting of key ministers as Number 10 pledges to “ensure a sustainable future” for the troubled [...]
Best of the Brokers for 8 July 2015 July 7, 2015 To appear in Best of the Brokers, email your research to notes@cityam.com AO WORLD Panmure Gordon has cut its target price to 114p from 130p and reiterated its “sell” rating. The broker said it expects AO World’s first quarter update on 21 July to show that it will struggle to meet full‐year market expectations, with [...]