Pret A Manger sees dwindling City sales amid latest Covid-19 wave December 23, 2021 Pret A Manger has seen dwindling transactions amid the latest Covid-19 wave, which has hit its City stores hardest. Sales in the café chain’s store in the City have dropped by nearly a third, according to the Office for National Statistics, the lowest level Pret has experienced since late August. Pret, which operates around 400 [...]
US private equity giant Blackstone snaps up 1,700 homes from Vistry as it drives to become major UK landlord June 4, 2024 Blackstone and Regis Group have inked a deal to buy 1,700 homes from developer Vistry. The private equity firm and its joint venture partner Regis will shell out £580m for the portfolio of new build homes across the South East of England.
Post-pandemic flexible working a must for burnt-out workers July 12, 2021 Over two thirds of workers want more flexible working post-pandemic, as just under half can’t switch off from work. A new study from Aviva shows that 44 per cent of workers feel they can’t switch off from work. As a result of always-on working, 40 per cent are now concerned about burn out. While both [...]
Londoners pay the price as Khan and No10 stay on the carousel of fights over TfL funding March 7, 2022 A FEW weeks ago, after months of wrangling, Transport for London and the Department for Transport finally agreed a slightly longer term short-term funding deal for the network. After a series of deals lasting a week or two at a time, this one runs until June. We don’t know what’s going to happen in June [...]
Nightcap eyes portfolio expansion as CEO ‘proves critics wrong’ after pandemic-launch January 12, 2022 Bar operator Nightcap hit £15.5m in net sales during its first full year of trading, as it lines up 25 new site openings this year. Boss Sarah Willingham, whose group owns Tonight Josephine and the London Cocktail Club, told CityA.M. she had “never been prouder” to work in hospitality than during the pandemic. The company [...]
Exclusive: Professional services partnerships start to come forward to HMRC over wrongly claimed furlough cash January 12, 2022 Professional services partnerships have begun to come forward over wrongly claimed coronavirus support, according to new data shared exclusively with City A.M. today. Around 25 professional services partnerships have admitted to overclaiming furlough with the amount totalling £309,588, averaging £12,384 per firm, law firm Pinsent Masons found. The numbers are likely to increase further as [...]
London: Six arrests amid Extinction Rebellion protests as Olympians scale oil tanker April 16, 2022 Six people have been arrested after Extinction Rebellion activists, including a pair of Olympians, scaled a Shell oil tanker. The Met police confirmed six arrests for vehicle interference had been made on Saturday, the BBC reported. Climate change activists had been demonstrating in central London against the government funding fossil fuels. It was not known [...]
Train chaos: How will the rail and Tube strikes affect services across London and the UK today? June 21, 2022 Rail and Tube strikes are set to cripple services this week, causing travel chaos for passengers across the UK as members of the Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union at Network Rail and 13 train operators are going on strike. Here is a quick rundown of what to expect today and this week. – When [...]
Negotiation has failed: the defence Keir should have made for rail strikes June 27, 2022 The rail strikes have finished, for the moment, and we can return to normal after the disruption. But we are promised a “summer of discontent”, with teachers and barristers next up to withdraw their labour. Disruption in public-facing services seems to be emerging as 2022’s leitmotif. The government responded to the transport strike by simultaneously [...]
Road trip: Traffic returns to pre-pandemic levels as restrictions ease June 2, 2021 After stay-at-home orders kept roads clear, traffic during weekdays is finally matching pre-pandemic levels, according to data by the Department for Transport today. Traffic on Friday soared 104 per cent past the equivalent weekday in February 2020, largely helped by the Bank Holiday weekend, for the first time since the lockdowns began. Vehicles hitting the [...]