Sustainable living finally comes of age July 2, 2009 A PROPERTY developer called Morpheus recently revamped three super-luxury homes on Clareville Street in South Kensington, complete with all mod-cons. Even in this climate, they sold within days of going on the market in June, at an average price of £5m. A pretty normal story for the top end of London’s property market. But what [...]
Poor data is a threat to UK’s green shoots June 18, 2009 A HOST of poor data released yesterday cast doubt over the prospects of Britain’s fragile economic recovery. The figures caused the pound to slip to a one-week low against the euro and gilt yields to edge higher. Retail sales fell unexpectedly in May by 0.6 per cent after an upbeat April thanks to a late [...]
House asking prices slip back in June June 21, 2009 THE average asking price of a UK property has fallen by 0.4 per cent this month, according to data from property website Rightmove, ending the string of good housing data over the past few weeks. June marked the first fall in five months due to hesitation by sellers and continued tight credit conditions. But on [...]
IS IT SUNNY SIDE UP FOR HOME RETAIL? June 11, 2009 JOHN STEVENSON KBC PEEL HUNT“Home Retail Group’s first quarter trading update has seen a notable boost to seasonal lines as Homebase at last delivers like-for-like sales growth. Argos sales were also ahead of expectations, although margins remains under pressure. We note a strong performance in toys, no doubt benefiting from the demise of Woolworths, a [...]
Swedish retail giant Ikea to slash workforce again July 7, 2009 THE continued decline in consumer spending is forcing Ikea to downsize its workforce further, and put a sharp halt on planned growth and expansion having already trimmed 5,000 employees from its pay roll. Only weeks after the company had to announce massive global job losses and the abandonment of plans to open stores in India, [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING August 4, 2009 FINANCIAL TIMES BMW EYES TIE-UP WITH PEUGEOT FOR MINIBMW is examining whether to share platforms with PSA Peugeot Citroën for its Mini small car, it emerged yesterday, as the German premium carmaker returned to profit in the second quarter on the back of cost-cutting. Norbert Reithofer, BMW’s chief executive, said the company was talking to [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING August 4, 2009 FINANCIAL TIMES BMW EYES TIE-UP WITH PEUGEOT FOR MINIBMW is examining whether to share platforms with PSA Peugeot Citroën for its Mini small car, it emerged yesterday, as the German premium carmaker returned to profit in the second quarter on the back of cost-cutting. Norbert Reithofer, BMW’s chief executive, said the company was talking to [...]
Treasury minister quits over expenses June 17, 2009 TREASURY minister Kitty Ussher resigned from the government last night after it emerged she avoided paying £17,000 capital gains tax on her Burnley constituency home when she sold it in 2007. Ussher denied she did anything wrong, but said she was stepping aside to prevent causing the “government any embarrassment.” Ussher, a former City Minister, [...]
THE LONDON REPORT June 21, 2009 THE JUNE gauntlet of retail company statements is set to continue this week, with two UK electronics giants due to issue full-year 2009 results. DSG, Kesa and Inchcape are lining up to report, following last week’s announcements from Tesco, J Sainsbury, Whitbread and Morrison. Kesa Electricals, which runs electronics store Comet among its Europe-wide retail [...]
Quantitative easing: time for a break August 5, 2009 IT IS A CASE of two steps forwards, one step backwards for the UK economy. Today’s good news was that house prices are stabilising, with a strong survey from the Halifax; we also had a great purchasing managers index for services, suggesting that crucial sector is growing once more. But there is also plenty of worrying [...]