Barratt homes enjoys its best spring sales season in five years May 10, 2012 BARRATT yesterday hailed its best spring selling season in five years, as it focused on more buoyant sections of Britain’s weak property market and government initiatives helped to prop it up. The company, one of Britain’s largest housebuilders, said while the economic outlook remains uncertain, it expects “the various government initiatives to continue to provide [...]
Mass lay-offs push HSBC cost savings to $2bn May 8, 2012 HSBC beat expectations after cracking down on its cost base in the first quarter of this year, laying off thousands to bring its overall job cuts to 14,000 while keeping its revenues steady. Excluding the effect of an accounting loss on its debt, the bank’s underlying pre-tax profits rose from $5.5bn in early 2011 to [...]
Spanish banks stoke fears of costly bailouts May 7, 2012 FEARS were yesterday growing that Madrid will cough up billions to bail out Spain’s ailing banks as the chairman of Bankia, one of the country’s biggest lenders, quit suddenly. Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy signalled that his government is lining up funds for a mass bailout as rumours circulated that Bankia, which only floated last [...]
Housing gloom grows as Co-op pulls interest only mortgages May 2, 2012 THE CO-OPERATIVE Bank has become the first major lender to pull its interest only mortgages. It said demand for the product had dropped because of falling house prices and “uncertainty” over interest rates. New customers will only be able to take mortgages on a capital and repayment basis from Tuesday. James Hillon, Co-op Bank head [...]
Funding costs drive Lloyds to slash loan book May 1, 2012 LLOYDS has taken an axe to its balance sheet in order to cut its reliance on increasingly expensive wholesale funding, the bank revealed yesterday. Markets welcomed the speedy shrinkage of the bank’s loan book as well as a signal from chief executive António Horta-Osório that he is keen to start paying a regular dividend and [...]
Why a lender promising to cut its lending makes sense – and why the ECB can’t do much about it May 1, 2012 IT IS not often these days that you hear a high street bank executive admit that his plan is to lend less to those well-loved aspirational families. And yet that is exactly what António Horta-Osório told analysts yesterday on a call to discuss Lloyds’ first quarter results. The aim, he said, is to slash the [...]
Mortgage costs on the rise even with Bank rate anchored down April 30, 2012 HOME-OWNERS will this morning be hit by a wave of hiked interest rates from some of the country’s leading lenders, despite the Bank of England’s loose monetary policy. Standard variable rates (SVRs) will shoot up for over a million mortgage holders, tightening the squeeze on incomes even further. Yorkshire Bank and Clydesdale Bank will increase [...]
Redrow to raise £80m to help fund expansion April 24, 2012 SHARES in housebuilder Redrow rose by almost eight per cent yesterday after it said it would raise about £80m to increase investment in London and outside the capital, in a move that could raise the stake of its executive chairman to above 40 per cent. The company, one of the smaller London-listed housebuilders, said it [...]
One Savings Bank plans to double revenues April 20, 2012 One Savings Bank, a new British lender backed by US private equity firm JC Flowers, aims to double its assets to £4.5bn and could make acquisitions to boost lending to small businesses. The company was created in February 2011 after JC Flowers injected fresh capital into the mutually owned Kent Reliance Building Society, a casualty [...]
Persimmon says government scheme is boosting enquiries April 19, 2012 PERSIMMON yesterday said it enjoyed a strong start to the year, with the government’s NewBuy scheme helping boost demand during the spring selling season. The housebuilder, whose brands include Charles Church and Westbury, said it continued to outperform, with visitor levels to its sites over the first 15 weeks of 2012 up 10 per cent [...]