SELL February 23, 2012 Managing Director of Kay & Co, central London estate agency Q. I want to sell my flat and it has 76 years left on the lease. Should I extend it first? A. Provided you have owned your flat for two years under Chapter II of Part 1 of The Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development [...]
Burberry sees sales surge as luxury booms January 17, 2012 BRITISH fashion house Burberry has posted a 21 per cent uplift in Christmas sales after high-spending tourists continued to flock to its flagship stores in search of its iconic trench-coats and leather goods. The 156 year-old firm said underlying sales rose to £574m in the three months to 31 December from £480m a year earlier, [...]
UK consumer credit drops January 31, 2012 Unsecured lending to Britain’s consumers posted its sharpest drop since at least 1993 in December, official data showed on Tuesday, highlighting their reluctance to take on more debt. Britons have been reluctant to take on more credit for major purchases, as bank lending conditions are tight and uncertainty over jobs is weighing on sentiment, making [...]
Morrisons sales growth slows over Christmas January 9, 2012 Wm Morrison Supermarkets reported a slowdown in sales growth over Christmas and predicted cash-strapped shoppers would remain reluctant to spend this year, despite an easing of inflationary pressures. Britain’s fourth-biggest grocer behind J Sainsbury, Wal-Mart’s Asda and industry leader Tesco) said sales at stores open over a year rose 0.7 per cent, excluding fuel and [...]
IPO fever returns to Europe as Ziggo and DKSH go public March 20, 2012 BIG European stock market listings have made a strong comeback after almost eight months without a major deal, suggesting that investors may be overcoming fears of a Eurozone collapse. Yesterday Swiss trading house DKSH sold 17.1m shares – equivalent to a third of its equity – for the highest expected price, raising 821m Swiss francs (£690m) for [...]
Halifax: Housing market will stay weak December 12, 2011 WEAK economic growth and persistent high unemployment will hold down house prices through 2012, Halifax warned yesterday in its housing market outlook. Only record low interest rates will help stop the market falling further, the bank’s economists claimed, although mortgage funding pressures are expected to weaken this support. Prices will keep rising in London, according [...]
Carnival flatlines as death toll rises January 17, 2012 SHARES in Carnival, the owner of the stricken Costa Concordia cruise ship, yesterday closed up only 1.6 per cent after suffering a 16.4 per cent fall on Monday. Details of the accident continued to emerge as divers found another five bodies, taking the death toll to 11, with 23 people still unaccounted for. The investigation [...]
Multi-million pound properties on the up as London prices soar January 12, 2012 PROPERTY prices in the capital are booming, and show no sign of slowing as a side effect of economic gloom, two separate studies released this morning have shown. According to LSL Property Services, London house prices are 3.1 per cent higher than last year, bucking the overall downward trend that saw property prices slump 0.5 [...]
US new home sales sink to a record low January 26, 2012 AMERICA’S dire housing market plumbed new lows in 2011, recording the worst year on record for sales of new homes. Sales fell 2.2 per cent in the final month of the year, data revealed yesterday, to a seasonally-adjusted annual rate of 307,000 homes. Yet separate figures appear to show that elsewhere in the US economy, [...]
Wall Street’s rally starts to lose steam January 26, 2012 A month-long rally on Wall Street appears to be sputtering as stocks slipped yesterday in what investors called a possible warning of weakness ahead. Weaker-than-expected home sales figures and a group of mixed earnings reports tempered the market’s recent buying interest. The Dow Jones industrial average was down 22.33 points, or 0.18 per cent, at [...]