Crown Estate sitting on £800m of vacant London properties December 11, 2015 The Crown Estate is sitting on over £800m worth of empty properties in London alone, a City A.M. investigation has revealed, exposing the scale of the developer’s property footprint in the capital. The monarchy’s portfolio of property and land includes 312 vacant properties in the Greater London area, according to a Freedom of Information request, [...]
UK house prices: The most expensive streets in Britain are concentrated in Kensington and Chelsea – but each region has million-pound addresses (apart from Wales) December 11, 2015 Property price growth might be slowing in London, but when it comes to the top of the pile there is one borough within the capital that is still dominating. The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea continues to reign as being home to the largest number of Britain's most expensive streets to buy a property on – in [...]
FTSE 100 closes down as Sports Direct struggles – London Report December 11, 2015 Gains for Glencore couldn’t keep the FTSE 100 up last night as both Sports Direct and Old Mutual fell hard. The index closed 0.63 per cent down at 6,088. Sports Direct slumped after Mike Ashley’s retailer posted poor first-half results and the company was criticised for staff conditions. Group revenue ticking up 0.1 per cent [...]
Unilever, Brewin Dolphin, PZ Cussons: Best of the Brokers for 11 December 2015 December 11, 2015 To appear in Best of the Brokers, email your research to notes@cityam.com Unilever has been given a “buy” rating by analysts at Shore Capital, on a current share price of 2,792p. It following Unilever’s annual investor event for 2015 focusing on the economically diverse South East Asia and Australasia regions. Analysts reckon the “vibrancy and [...]
John Lewis sales suffer post-Black Friday hangover but sales are still up year-on-year December 11, 2015 After reporting record-breaking numbers over Black Friday, John Lewis today said that it saw a double-digit drop in sales last week. Sales fell 11.8 per cent to £165.6m compared with the last week of November, although the number is still up 13.6 per cent on the same week last year. This is in stark contrast [...]
First-time housebuyers in a festive frenzy, as number of valuations for this purpose rocketed up 31 per cent compared to last year December 11, 2015 Christmas may have come early for some first-time buyers, as the number of valuations for homehunters in this category jumped up last month. According to a report out today by Connells Survey & Valuation, the number of valuations carried out for first-time buyers in November was 31 per cent higher than the same time last [...]
Mortgage lending has another healthy month in November December 11, 2015 Mortgage lending climbed last month, according to new figures published this morning. There were 70,511 house purchase approvals in November, the data from surveyors e.surv show. Compared with the same month last year, the number of approvals is up 19 per cent. If accurate, the figure also surpasses August’s year-high of 70,748 approvals. E.surv's figures [...]
ICAEW: Low business investment will weigh on economic growth next year December 11, 2015 Economic growth will slow next year as business investment stutters, exports weaken further and skills shortages bite, according to the latest forecast from the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW). The group slashed its forecasts today for 2016 UK economic growth to 2.1 per cent from 2.6 per cent. One of the main [...]
Companies flock to London to float on stock market after its bumper year of IPOs December 11, 2015 Companies have been coming to London in droves to bring their companies to market, according to accountants at PwC. London’s stock market was found to be the most active exchange in Europe in 2015, with just over £11.5bn raised through 84 initial public offerings (IPOs). London also became home to three of the biggest IPOs of [...]
Sports Direct share price drops by 10 per cent as growth slows and questions mount over working conditions December 10, 2015 Discount sports retailer Sports Direct has had one of its worse days on record, with its share price closing down over 10 per cent last night, wiping hundreds of millions of its market capitalisation. The sell off was due to a double whammy of missing analyst expectations for growth and further questions over staff working [...]