London’s house prices soar 12pc February 18, 2014 HOUSE prices in the capital have pulled further away from those in the rest of the country, official figures showed yesterday. London’s prices jumped by 12.3 per cent in the 12 months to December, more than double the 5.5 per cent rise in the UK as a whole, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said. The increase [...]
Average home to cost £600k February 3, 2014 LONDON’S booming property market is already starting to look like a bubble, while many other parts of the country are still seeing subdued activity since the financial crisis. London’s house price-to-income ratio is back at peak levels, bucking the trend of other regions, where it has fallen back since 2007, according to today’s report [...]
Housebuilding boss downplays Help to Buy influence August 19, 2013 Housebuilder Bovis Homes Group has announced a 19 per cent jump in first half pre-tax profits to £18.6m and that it has already sold around 90 per cent of its homes for the year. However, its chief executive denied the success was due entirely to a government-fuelled housing bubble (release). Bovis’s average house price increased [...]
Eight ways technology has reinvented fiction July 16, 2014 At a recent lecture in Oxford, Will Self announced the death of the novel. The internet, he said, has mercilessly invaded the silent, solitary leisure time we once filled with “serious” reading. As a result, serious books will no longer feature as a central part of culture. Like classical music, they will continue to exist, [...]
Ukraine to get up to $27bn from international bailout March 28, 2014 UKRAINE is set to receive financial aid of between $14bn (£8.4bn) and $18bn from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), as the world body laid out the vast economic challenges facing the country. The amount announced yesterday is lower than the $15bn-$20bn the interim government of Ukraine had asked for, but higher than the flat $15bn [...]
Persimmon profits more than double on booming demand February 25, 2014 Another house builder riding the wave of surging demand. Following bumper results from Bovis yesterday, Persimmon has said this morning that its profit before tax more than doubled in 2013. The 54.5 per cent increase to £337.1m came about as the group “responded quickly” to growing customer demand, outperforming its original long term plan. Chairman Nicolas [...]
What the other papers say this morning – 12 May 2014 May 11, 2014 FINANCIAL TIMES Fraud office steps up Barclays probe Bob Diamond, John Varley and other senior members of Barclays’ former management are set to be questioned under caution by the UK’s Serious Fraud Office, in an acceleration of its probe into alleged corrupt arrangements in Qatar as part of the bank’s emergency cash call in 2008. [...]
How shareholders are keeping faith in Carpetright April 1, 2014 Poor old Carpetright was in a frayed state last week when a third profit warning by the group in six months sent shares down five per cent from 586p to 556.5p. The retailer, which is in the hands of its chairman and founder Lord Harris, after chief executive Darren Shapland quit last year, bemoaned that [...]
What the other papers say this morning – 10 April 2014 April 9, 2014 FINANCIAL TIMES Firms in the dark over pension charges Employers running final-salary pension schemes can be charged 10 times more than more efficient competitors, according to a new regulatory study that exposes a further lack of transparency in Britain’s investment industry. Research by The Pensions Regulator has also found that nearly a quarter of the [...]
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 [...]