Aldermore to be valued at up to £660m as bank covers book March 3, 2015 CHALLENGER bank Aldermore is set to debut on the stock market next week with a valuation of between £600m and £660m, City A.M. understands. The lender tried to list late last year but had to pull the initial public offering when choppy markets hit investor confidence. But buyers are understood to be flooding into the lower-priced offering [...]
Landlords put up more equity for buy-to-let loans March 1, 2015 BUY-TO-LET borrowers are putting up more equity before making new purchases in a bid to shorten mortgage terms, according to a new report by the Mortgage Advice Bureau. Aspiring landlords have increased the amount of equity behind them by 15 per cent during the past year to an average of almost £100,000, while the average [...]
City Moves for 27 February 2015 | Who’s switching jobs February 26, 2015 Octopus Investments The fund management firm has appointed Richard Wazacz as business line manager for venture capital trusts. He was formerly corporate development director for UK and Europe at Prudential. Wazacz has also held senior positions at Lloyds Banking Group. BLP The law firm has appointed Daniyal Ansari as partner in its real estate finance [...]
London pricing out first-time home buyers February 25, 2015 THE LONDON housing market is cooling, according to figures yesterday released by the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML). Loans to first-time buyers totalled 12,000 in number and £2.9bn in value in the three months to 31 December. It marks a drop of 11 per cent in number and seven per cent in value on the three [...]
Lender lobby’s animated pitch February 24, 2015 THE COUNCIL of Mortage Lenders (CML) yesterday set out its election manifesto, as a short video. The animated clip lays out many of the policies the CML wants parties to consider for the election, to help “the old, the young, and the in-betweeners” including promotion of shared equity opportunities. Paul Smee, director general of the CML, said: [...]
The Yorkshire attacks account switch stitch up February 24, 2015 THE YORKSHIRE Building Society wants to become a challenger in the current account market, but its boss yesterday said it cannot because the switching service is not working. Seven-day switching helped the numbers moving between banks rise to 1.16m last year, but chief executive Chris Pilling told City A.M. that this is not the “game-changing shift” the [...]
Persimmon share price falls despite profits jumping 44 per cent February 24, 2015 The figures Persimmon, the UK's biggest listed housebuilder, said underlying pre-tax profit jumped 44 per cent to £475m for the fiscal year 2014, up from £330m a year earlier. Full-year revenue rose 44 per cent to £475m, up from £330m in 2013. Completions – the number of homes built – rose 17 per cent to 13,509 while [...]
Frantic race to remortgage as rates plummet February 22, 2015 HOMEOWNERS are rushing to remortgage to take advantage of record low mortgage rates, new figures from the Mortgage Advice Bureau (MAB) show. Remortgage applications jumped 24 per cent in January from December. Year-on-year, January saw a 17 per cent increase in remortgage applications. It compares to the 12 per cent climb in applications for [...]
Why 2015 is the year to remortgage your home February 22, 2015 With the end in sight for record low borrowing costs, now is an "ideal time" for people to remortgage their homes, using fixed rates to lock-in favourable repayment terms ahead of a rate hike expected early next year. Since their peak in summer 2012, fixed rate mortgages fell in 18 of the 28 months to 3.15 [...]
Insurance sector to be hit by M&A fever as Fairfax buys Brit February 17, 2015 Analysts said yesterday that Brit’s acquisition by Canadian firm Fairfax Financial Holdings could be the precursor to other deals set to sweep the insurance market. Shares in Brit jumped by 11.23 per cent following the news that Fairfax had made an offer of £1.22bn that has been agreed by private equity owners CVC and Apollo, [...]