Richard Desmond is moving from porn to property as Northern and Shell plans to build homes and a school April 29, 2016 Struggling to find a good school for your children in East London? Richard Desmond to the rescue. Shortly after selling off its pornographic network, Portland TV, Desmond's Northern and Shell has announced plans to move into property development. And as well as building 722 homes, the publisher of the Daily Express and Daily Star is also [...]
“We were the first ever agents to sell a building through Twitter” – Meet the social media moguls dragging commercial property sales into the 21st century April 29, 2016 While residential estate agents have been dragged into the internet age, their commercial counterparts have – mostly – continued to resist such a move. There’s no Rightmove for office blocks, or warehouses. And it was this inherent conservatism that seemed to offer a great opportunity when three young surveyors decided to set up shop in [...]
Sir Martin Sorrell’s £70m: The defence (and not just from Sorrell and WPP) April 29, 2016 Advertising giant WPP today confirmed Sir Martin Sorrell's pay package totalled £70m last year in its annual report. The figure included a £62.8m long-term bonus. In recent weeks, Sorrell has been forced to defend his pay. And, perhaps unsurprisingly, WPP's annual report also defended its chief executive and founder: “While the value of Sir Martin Sorrell’s award is very [...]
Fire alarm closes High Street Kensington tube station April 29, 2016 High Street Kensington underground station has been evacuated after an electrical room in the adjacent shopping centre was flooded and a fire alarm went off. Shortly before 12.30pm, London Fire Brigade (LFB) responded to reports of a fire alarm which was sounded in shops close to the underground station. A crew of three fire trucks [...]
Bank of England warns UK’s largest lenders they will pay the price for ending “too big to fail” April 29, 2016 The Bank of England has told the UK's largest lenders that ending the era of "too big to fail" will make it more expensive for them to do business. There will "inevitably be higher costs" for banks as a result of the new regulatory requirements being placed upon them, Jon Cunliffe, deputy governor for financial [...]
Property of the Week: The three-bed Chelsea penthouse of the Sex Pistols’ visual designer April 29, 2016 Most property developers start out with a humble investment and move on to create homes that superstars want to live in. But Margaret and Michael Stanford began with icons, largely thanks to their job as visual designers – of album covers, videos and stage sets – for some of Britain’s most revered artists, including Queen, [...]
Nigel Farage: The Remain campaign is trying to scare you April 29, 2016 Nigel Farage has warned that the Remain campaign is increasingly using scare tactics to persuade voters to stay in the EU – as he suggested food and cars will be cheaper in the case of Brexit In a wide-ranging speech, Farage accused the Remain campaign of a "remorseless torrent of propaganda scaring us", adding that "all sorts of [...]
New Builds: From Notting Hill to Battersea, here are the hottest new developments on the market this week April 29, 2016 Alto, Wembley From £715,000 High rise apartments have gone on sale at Alto, a development by Keystone and Quintain, which is part of the 83-acre regeneration of Wembley Park. The two and three bedroom apartments sit in the Pienna building, the 19-storey ‘crowning glory’ of the scheme designed by Flanagan Lawrence Architects, which worked on [...]
Former Labour MEP jailed for four years over dishonest expenses claims April 29, 2016 An MEP who claimed nearly £500,000 in expenses dishonestly has been jailed for four years. Peter Skinner was a Labour MEP for the South East between 1999 and 2014. He was found guilty of three charges after a trial at Southwark Crown Court in London. Read more: Ken Livingstone suspended as Labour is branded a home [...]
Credit Suisse warns shareholders to brace themselves for a bumpy 2016 April 29, 2016 The chief executive of Credit Suisse has said the bank’s performance has been “encouraging” after it posted a pre-tax loss of 2.4bn swiss francs (£1.6bn) in 2015, but warned that 2016 will be a “challenging" year. Tidjane Thiam, who moved to Credit Suisse last year, told shareholders at the group’s annual general meeting (AGM) today that he expects [...]