B&Q owner Kingfisher’s shares are tumbling. Here’s why May 29, 2014 Kingfisher shares have shed 6.1 per cent, despite the home improvements retailer announcing a £100m special dividend this morning. Like-for-like sales at B&Q jumped 9.7 per cent to £1bn in the first quarter, with Screwfix seeing a 12 per cent increase, to £192m. But investors may not have been so filled with confidence over the [...]
What you need to know before the open June 4, 2014 European markets are expected lower this morning, as stock futures were seen falling. Nervousness is building ahead of the European Central Bank’s anticipated measures, which’ll be revealed tomorrow. Regulator Ofcom has announced further imposed cuts to the cost of mobile phone calls, with a new charge control that’ll see calls to different networks fall to [...]
Mulberry hires the boss of Italian jeweller Buccellati as a non-exec June 10, 2014 MULBERRY has bolstered its board by hiring the chief executive of Italian luxury jeweller Buccellati as a non-executive director. The appointment of Thierry Andretta comes at a turbulent time for the luxury group, which has issued four profit warnings over the past two years. The firm is also searching for a new chief executive following [...]
London house price surge to slow after frenzied year April 28, 2014 LONDON house prices could rise more moderately in the months ahead after a manic year of double digit growth, new evidence today suggests. The latest report from Hometrack shows that the amount of time that the average London house spends on the market has risen from 2.7 to 3.4 weeks between March and April. The [...]
City workers fuel Midtown housing boom May 12, 2014 HOUSE prices in the area dubbed Midtown have outpaced the greater London market in the first three months of the year due to a surge in demand from buyers working in the capital’s financial sector, new research out yesterday shows. According to property consultants CBRE, the price of a property in Midtown – between the [...]
City A.M. shadow MPC votes 7-2 to hold rates June 4, 2014 ALLISTER HEATH | CITY A.M. “Bank rate should rise immediately to one per cent. UK employment has returned to long-term average levels, and hiring still is still accelerating. Monetary policy for emergency conditions is not just unsuitable in this environment, but dangerous too.” JAMES SPROULE | INSTITUTE OF DIRECTORS “Hold rates – UK recovery continues [...]
Britain needs a monetary policy fit for a booming economy May 11, 2014 SO what, exactly, is going on? Why does the UK still have crisis-level interest rates at a time when growth is roaring ahead? When will the penny finally drop? Check out the evidence; it is pretty conclusive. The Confederation of British Industry believes that the economy will grow by three per cent this year and [...]
Don’t panic – British house prices are really boring May 6, 2014 You wouldn’t guess it from London’s boom in house prices, but Britain’s market overall is perhaps the most boring in the developed world, OECD numbers showed today. Prices increased just 1.3 per cent last year, the organisation said – a shockingly dull rise. And don't just take that number in isolation. Britain is [...]
Santander UK results lifted by resurgence of mortgage market April 29, 2014 SANTANDER UK’s profits jumped in the first quarter of the year, increasing by nearly half as the housing market recovery pumps mortgage lending upwards. Profits before tax rose to £416m between January and March, according to results released yesterday. The earnings mark a 48 per cent increase from the same period in 2013. The significant [...]
Value of London mortgages rockets 37pc May 28, 2014 Another sign of the surging housing market: the value of mortgages to home buyers in Greater London jumped 37 per cent from a year earlier in the first quarter of this year – to £5.6bn. The figure was actually down 10 per cent from the fourth quarter of 2013 – a seasonal dip impacting lending, [...]