Square Mile roadworks are a necessary evil August 22, 2010 LAST week, London First published a report entitled “Road Sense”, looking at how to best strike a balance between the costs and benefits of works taking place on the streets of London. As anyone who visits the City with any degree of regularity will be able to testify, streetworks (for, traditionally, there are no highways [...]
Stagecoach is on track as rail improves August 18, 2010 STAGECOACH yesterday reported a rise in sales at its British and US transport businesses, with its rail operations performing strongly. Stagecoach, operator of the South West Trains franchise in Britain and which last year failed in an attempt to buy rival National Express, said in a statement it had significant undrawn bank facilities. The company’s [...]
TfL signs up 44,000 to use Barclays Cycle Hire August 12, 2010 LONDON’S cycle hire scheme has been used for more than 100,000 journeys since its launch on 30 July, Transport for London (TfL) said yesterday. Around 44,000 people have signed up to the hire programme, and are between them making up to 14,000 journeys per day. Around 70 extra docking stations are under construction, bringing the [...]
CITY MOVES | WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS August 12, 2010 Deloitte The accountancy firm has appointed Zahir Bokhari to lead its UK banking and capital markets audit business. Bokhari brings over 20 years of experience to the role, having provided audit, assurance and advisory services to numerous listed clients in the retail banking, inter-dealer brokers and capital markets sectors in his previous capacity as senior [...]
Underground workers vote to strike August 11, 2010 LONDON?could be plunged into transport chaos after rail union RMT’s members voted overwhelmingly in favour of strike action. The underground workers are furious the government is pushing ahead with tough cost cuts they say could total more than £4bn over three years. It is thought station and ticket staff are likely to bear the brunt [...]
GUARDIAN DRAGS ITS HEELS OVER RENEWING HAY SPONSORSHIP DEAL August 11, 2010 WHAT with an enthusiastic push into online investment, a string of ill-advised private equity deals and a move to swanky new offices at Kings Cross, it appears more traditional stalwarts of the Guardian’s extra-curricular programme could be coming under threat. A little bird tells The Capitalist that the newspaper’s long-standing sponsorship of the Hay literary [...]
Quintain JV sells offices at Pier Walk August 9, 2010 REAL estate investor Quintain has sold its Pier Walk development near Canary Wharf to DekaBank, Germany’s largest open-ended fund manager, for £97.1m. Quintain, which owned the seven-story building at Greenwich Peninsula in a joint venture with Bovis Lend Lease, said the sale represents a six per cent uplift on the property’s valuation in March and [...]
Quintain sells GreEnwich property for £97m August 9, 2010 QUINTAIN Estates and Development has sold Pier Walk in its Greenwich Peninsula development near Canary Wharf to a unit of Germany’s largest fund manager DekaBank. Deka Immobilien GmbH paid £97.1m in cash for the property, representing a six per cent uplift on the last independent valuation on 31 March and an investment yield of 5.9 [...]
We need to enhance London as a business hub August 8, 2010 LAST week, British Land and Blackstone agreed a deal to build the City of London’s largest office building to house the new European headquarters of UBS. And whilst we are still very early in the planning process – no formal application has been made – the City of London has, as always, been liaising with [...]
Bond St tube gets £300m facelift August 4, 2010 Transport for London (TfL) has awarded a £300m contract to Costain and Laing O’Rourke to redevelop Bond Street Tube station, with the upgrades expected to take up to seven years. Once finished, Bond Street station is expected to have a new entrance and ticket hall north of Oxford Street, new escalators, improved interchanges between the [...]