Debenhams profit drops 84.6 per cent and CFO leaves for greener pastures April 19, 2018 Debenhams announced a dramatic drop in profits this morning, while its finance chief departed the company for a position at Selfridges. But chief executive Sergio Bucher insisted that the retilaer is on the right track to return to profitable growth. Shares in the company were down as much as 12.6 per cent in early trading [...]
City offices set for bumper demand in 2018 as more businesses expected to come to the Square Mile January 19, 2018 City office take-up will soar in 2018 with businesses expected to lease more than 5m square feet (sq ft) of space this year. According to real estate advisers CBRE, Brexit has had minimal impact on financial and insurance firms’ appetite for office space it the City. It also forecasts demand for co-working spaces will continue [...]
SoftBank’s Vision Fund backs online car marketplace Auto1 January 14, 2018 Another day, another SoftBank startup investment. The highly active Japanese firm with $100bn of its Vision Fund to spend is backing Auto1, a Berlin-based online marketplace for buying and selling cars. It is investing €460m in the five-year-old startup, one of the most highly valued in Europe at €2.9bn with the fresh investment and already [...]
Property giant British Land set to publish first-half results November 13, 2017 First-half results from the property development company British Land will be unveiled this week, giving a significant look at the London property market amid Brexit uncertainty. Key details to be published include the occupancy rate and average lease length, which stood at 98 per cent and 8.3 years in the last financial year. These are [...]
Fears of evil innovations are as wrong as they’ve always been February 22, 2018 Whenever an impressive new technology comes along, people rush to imagine the havoc it could wreak on society – and they overreact. In the sixteenth century, parliament banned mechanical gig mills, and the hosiers guild ran William Lee out of Britain for inventing a better knitting frame. In the early nineteenth century, Luddite stocking knitters [...]
Commercial property investment in the City set for a record year, according to Savills October 24, 2017 Commercial property investment in the City is set to reach or beat the record of £12.6bn set in 2014, according to research from Savills. Investment in the Square Mile for the first three quarters of this year has already beaten the full-year total for 2016. Volumes hit £8.5bn by the end of September – six [...]
The digital nomads: How to pack a suitcase and start a new life working from abroad January 25, 2018 Who among us hasn’t dreamed of jacking in their day job to trade forex from a laptop in Malibu or open a beach bar in Thailand? You might have read The 4-Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss and asked why you haven’t yet “escaped the nine-to-five to live anywhere and join the new rich”. I [...]
SoftBank could be about to make Deliveroo a unicorn with talks of investment from Apple and Saudi-backed Vision Fund July 2, 2017 One of the UK’s star tech startups, Deliveroo, is on the verge of becoming a so-called unicorn, with SoftBank in talks over a potential investment. SoftBank’s Vision Fund, a huge new tech investment vehicle which has already backed several British tech companies, is in discussions to take a stake in the food delivery firm that [...]
A startup sprouting up across London could be getting a massive investment from Softbank January 31, 2017 A startup that seems to be on almost every corner in the centre of London these days could be about to land a major investment from Softbank's massive $100bn tech fund, according to reports. WeWork, a co-working space which already has 12 locations in the capital, could be the first investment made by the Japanese firm's new Vision Fund, [...]
Here’s everything you’ll need to avoid Tube troubles during today’s Central line strike February 22, 2017 You may have heard there's going to be a Tube strike tonight. It's going ahead from 9pm tonight until 9pm tomorrow, Wednesday 22 February and is set to cause significant disruption to the Central and Waterloo & City Lines (with likely knock-on effects elsewhere too). So to prepare for the trouble, here's everything you'll need [...]