Berkeley boss Tony Pidgley has made an ominous call about the future of London’s housing market June 21, 2018 Legendary housebuilder Tony Pidgley is primarily known for three things. Firstly, he was a Barnardo’s baby, subsequently adopted by a family of gypsies. Secondly, from such humble beginnings he rose to become one of the UK’s highest-paid business chiefs. And thirdly, he is credited with calling the house price crash at the end of the [...]
RBS share price slumps as boss Ross McEwan welcomes government share selloff as Labour and Lib Dems question process June 5, 2018 RBS boss Ross McEwan has said it is “the right time to re-start the share sale process” after it emerged the government was offloading a further 7.7 per cent overnight. Chancellor Philip Hammond was advised yesterday to start the process by UK Government Investments (UKGI), the corporate finance arm of the government responsible for managing [...]
Editor’s notes: Jeff Bezos should look closer to home for ideas on where to spend his fortune, new peer Bethell is a Lord to applaud, and the Economist shows how to stand up to social media bullies September 7, 2018 Amazon has joined Apple in the ranks of $1 trillion companies based on market capitalisation. Shortly before his company hit this massive (but meaningless) valuation, founder Jeff Bezos was pondering how to spend his vast wealth. Bezos is estimated to be sitting on a $130bn (£100bn) fortune – and earlier this summer he was asked [...]
First impressions from this week’s Google hardware event, which revealed the Pixel 3, Pixel Slate and Google Home Hub October 10, 2018 At this week’s Google event, the search giant opened with a rather sheepish admission, following comprehensive leaks of its latest flagship Pixel phones. “We hope you agree that we’re better at making hardware than keeping secrets.” But while the physical aspects of the new Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL phones were already known about [...]
House prices in Bethnal Green: Shoreditch’s loss is Bethnal Green’s gain as professionals flee high house prices in E1 | City A.M. July 16, 2018 There was a time when Bethnal Green lived up to its rural-sounding name. It was actually a prosperous area in the 19th century, with large houses and gardens. Originally called Bethan Hall Green, the name was changed to align with local Cockney pronounciation which dropped the ‘h’. By the 19th century, Bethnal Green became one [...]
House of Fraser to sell stake to Hamleys owner and close stores May 2, 2018 House of Fraser became the latest struggling retailer to confirm that it will close stores yesterday, as part of a deal to sell a stake to the owner of Hamleys. But employees will have a nail-biting month-long wait to find out which of the 59 stores will be affected. The department store group, owned by [...]
FTSE 100 softech Micro Focus’ share price is rising, after annoucing the sale of Suse to private equity house EQT July 2, 2018 Software provider and IT management consultancy Micro Focus has announced the sale of its Suse open source subsidiary for $2.535bn (£1.93bn) to Swedish private equity house EQT, giving its share price a boost as markets opened. Suse is worth almost one-third of Micro Focus’s business, acquired by the company as part of an all-share purchase [...]
Remember this tiny Chelsea house on sale for £600,000? It just sold for £100,000 above asking price March 15, 2017 Rumours of Chelsea's demise are greatly exaggerated, it seems – after a miniature house in the London neighbourhood sold for a whopping £713,823. That's more than £100,000 above asking price. The tiny home, which we wrote about back in February, was on sale at £600,000. Sounds like a bargain for a home in the heart of Chelsea overlooking [...]
Moneyland review: How the world’s ultra-rich get away with it September 23, 2018 What do Japanese surrogate babies, luxurious London condos and the tiny Caribbean island of St Kitts have in common? For Oliver Bullough, they’re all part of the terrifying and vertigo-inducing ways the world’s ultra-rich – the denizens of what he dubs ‘Moneyland’ – protect themselves and their money. In Moneyland: Why Thieves and Crooks Now [...]
Editor’s Notes: The joy of Scan-dining, coming down to earth and never mind the Banksys October 12, 2018 The City’s restaurant scene has changed enormously even in the last few years. There’s more life in the Square Mile at weekends and more choice for City lunches than ever before. These are exciting times. A good way to get a sense of this is to embark, as I did yesterday, on a lunch safari. [...]