How gyms are filling spaces left vacant by retailers and restaurants around London April 8, 2018 Exercise is basically the new clubbing. At least, that’s what Casey Phillips, a property agent at Shelley Sandzer, tells me as we’re discussing why the fitness industry is currently booming. “Instead of getting drunk, you do a class together,” he says. “You just feel incredible afterwards.” The wellness and fitness industry is estimated to reach [...]
Hammerson shrugs off retail woes as it treads water on Intu takeover ahead of Klepierre deadline April 5, 2018 Shopping centre owner Hammerson today said it had a strong start to the year despite ongoing challenges for the high street. The firm also provided an update on its proposed takeover of Intu, saying it is holding off on shareholder documents as it awaits the next move from French firm Klepierre. Earlier this month, real [...]
Why I’m sick of bad press releases from lazy PRs who have never read me or this newspaper April 3, 2018 On 1 April, I published a column on the City A.M. website. Check it out: it’s a spoof of a press release. You may think it’s hyperbole. It isn’t. It’s the kind of effortful rubbish that I receive every day. In the past, when some grotesquely bad press release hit my inbox, I would mock [...]
Through the grapevine: Les Sources de Caudalie, a family-run hotel amid the vineyards of Bordeaux, is where the A-listers relax March 29, 2018 I’m soaking contentedly in a Jacuzzi constructed out of a giant wine barrel. Set among rolling vines, Les Sources de Caudalie delivers the holy trinity of life’s finer things; exquisite food and drink, world-class spa pampering, and Hollywood stars making their arrival by chopper. The hotel, located 20 minutes from Bordeaux, is part of an [...]
Lucy Watson and Clive Watson discuss Tell Your Friends, London’s upcoming vegan foodie hotspot March 19, 2018 Growing up as the daughter of a man who has launched and sold several successful pub chains, Lucy Watson never thought she would launch her own hospitality business. “I always thought of it as quite a manly industry,” she says. Apart from sometimes working as a waitress in his pubs, her aspirations were fixed elsewhere. [...]
Editor’s Notes: Jeremy Corbyn’s Russia position is the latest in a shameful line-up, the IoD strides on and City AM bucks the industry trend March 16, 2018 Jeremy Corbyn’s refusal to recognise the hand of the Russian state in the Salisbury attack puts him at odds with the British government and its intelligence services, Nato, the United Nations Security Council, France, America, Germany and a host of other allies. It also serves as a reminder that if the British label you an [...]
‘Trump could be the best president since Reagan’: US ambassador Woody Johnson on trade deals, tariffs, Brexit and London’s ‘surprisingly good’ restaurants March 13, 2018 Six months into his term as Donald Trump’s ambassador to the UK, and newly installed south of the river in a fortress-like embassy, Woody Johnson is enjoying himself. “I’m loving it,” he tells me, in his first interview with a business newspaper since arriving in London last August. At a reception for journalists in the [...]
Where’s the beef? Meat substitutes are suddenly big business: we try the UK’s first plant-based ‘bleeding burger’ and ask if meat will one day be a thing of the past March 8, 2018 In the mockumentary Carnage, Simon Amstel imagines a future in which eating meat is as socially unacceptable as cannibalism. Groups of elderly people sit in therapy sessions trying to come to terms with the atrocities they committed against the animal kingdom, with the narrator quipping “‘Meat-free Monday’ now sounds about as appealing as ‘ethnic cleansing-free [...]
Social Entertainment Ventures poaches D&D executive to head up growth of Bounce, Puttshack and Flight Club USA March 8, 2018 The company behind leisure bar concepts Bounce and Puttshack has appointed a new chief executive, as the group takes its first steps towards an eventual IPO. Social Entertainment Ventures (SEV), which also runs the US franchise of darts bar Flight Club, has ambitions to go public in five years, City A.M. revealed last month. The [...]
Focus On Victoria: A £4bn investment has completely changed the area from dowdy offices to shiny penthouses and hip restaurants March 5, 2018 If the Queen’s getting a £369m refurbishment of Buckingham Palace, it seems only fair that the neighbourhood surrounding it should get a polish, too. £4bn should just about cover it, and that’s how much has been invested in the area by developer Land Securities over the last five years. Around £700m of that has gone [...]