Housing market is looking healthier June 28, 2010 THE long upwards run for house prices has ground to a halt. The recent history of UK house prices has confounded many commentators: values plunged when the credit crunch hit, albeit not as much as in the US, then regained over half of their losses over the past year. The present return to stagnation makes [...]
Aldermore to deliver profit June 28, 2010 ALDERMORE, Britain’s first private equity-backed bank, expects to turn a profit this year, less than 18 months after it began lending to small businesses and entrepreneurs. The institution, which is owned by buyout house AnaCap and investment bank Morgan Stanley, is eyeing a small gain after its commercial mortgages, asset finance and invoice finance arms [...]
Alchemy sells Pierce stake June 27, 2010 ALCHEMY Partners will sell its stake in broker Seymour Pierce as it attempts to scale down its investments in the wake of the departure of founder Jon Moulton. Alchemy acquired 29.9 per cent of the City’s biggest small-cap brokerage after throwing its weight behind a management buyout in 2003. The Seymour Pierce employee benefit trust [...]
Time to rejig your finances June 24, 2010 HE had promised us a tough Budget and on Tuesday, chancellor George Osborne gave us one – most households will be worse off as a result of the measures announced. But it’s not like we weren’t warned – ever since the coalition government gained power last month, it has been austerity, austerity, austerity. It should [...]
Entrepreneurs will welcome Budget June 24, 2010 THE Emergency Budget was one of the most severe for decades, with some hefty tax rises – notably VAT – and cuts to public spending. Yet in spite of this, the chancellor made provisions to encourage growth and laid out initiatives to foster entrepreneurial activity. The extension of the enterprise finance guarantee (EFG) scheme will [...]
Q&A CURRENCY June 24, 2010 CAMILLA DELL MANAGING PARTNER AT BLACK BRICK Q.Dear Camilla, I am a London property developer and in light of this week’s Budget, what will the week’s announcements mean for the capital’s housing market? A.Well, the rise in capital gains tax (CGT) was far, far less than everybody expected, which is a great relief for those [...]
How Osborne’s budget affects the housing market June 24, 2010 THERE are not many ways to make a 10 per cent tax hike look business-friendly, but Chancellor George Osborne pulled off a neat trick this week by doing just that. Expectations of a massive capital gains tax (CGT) rise had been building since the Liberal Democrats, who had promised to raise CGT to close to [...]
IFS rejects Budget’s progressive claims June 23, 2010 THE Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) yesterday rejected chancellor George Osborne’s confident claim on Tuesday of a progressive Budget that would spread the pain across all sections of society but that the richest would contribute more than the poorest. James Browne at the IFS said yesterday that the fiscal consolidation measures announced by the coalition [...]
Budget score is 7 out of 10, say our panel June 23, 2010 GEORGE Osborne’s first Budget deserves a score of seven out of ten, our unique panel of London’s financiers and business professionals said yesterday. The City A.M./PoliticsHome.com Panel, which has been specially recruited to represent a cross section of London’s financial community, was also asked whether they thought the toughest fiscal consolidation in Britain’s peacetime history [...]
PM confirms public sector pensions cut June 23, 2010 THE PRIME Minister yesterday confirmed the pensions of existing public sector workers will be cut, as he defended the coalition Budget in a tetchy question and answer session with voters. Cameron said the bill for public sector pensions was too high and that schemes would become less favourable for existing members of staff as well [...]