Number of repossessions declines August 11, 2011 British mortgage lenders repossessed seven per cent fewer homes in the first half of 2011 than they did in the first half of 2010, their industry body said yesterday. The Council of Mortgage Lenders said 9,000 repossessions took place in the second quarter of 2011, down from 9,100 in the first quarter. Repossessions totalled 18,100 [...]
Mortgage lending rises in June August 10, 2011 Mortgage lending jumped in June according to figures from the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML). The total number of new home loans to house buyers jumped by 22 per cent from May, to 46,700. Loans to first-time buyers reached a 10-month high, up 24 per cent from May to 18,100. Although the level of lending [...]
CITY MOVES | WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS August 9, 2011 Baker & McKenzie The law firm has appointed Marc Fèvre as a partner in its energy, mining and infrastructure (EMI) group. Fèvre joins from Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, and is an expert in energy and infrastructure project development and finance. He also brings recent experience of the Middle East, having worked in Abu Dhabi since early [...]
S&P lowers more ratings August 8, 2011 A SWATHE of US institutions were stripped of their gold-plated credit ratings by Standard & Poor’s as the fall-out from the downgrade of the US rating agency continued yesterday. As Moody’s weighed its decision to hold the US at AAA, S&P cut the two giant US mortgage agencies Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae to AA+ [...]
House prices in slim rise August 5, 2011 House prices have gone up for the third month in a row, according to the Halifax mortgage lender. Its latest monthly survey says they rose in July by just 0.3 per cent, leaving them 2.6 per cent lower than a year ago at £163,981. The lender explained that over the last three months prices had [...]
Northern Rock narrows loss August 3, 2011 Nationalised lender Northern Rock posted a first-half loss of £78.8m and said it continues to work on plans for an eventual sale of the company back to the private sector. Last year it made a first-half loss of £140m, and the company said it now expects to start trading profitably some time in the second [...]
Bids roll in for the Rock July 28, 2011 THE government received at least two bids for Northern Rock yesterday, six weeks after it kicked off the privatisation of the lender bailed out during the financial crisis. Virgin Money and private equity firm JC Flowers are both understood to have made indicative offers for the Northern Rock “good bank” that is on sale, with [...]
Virgin and Resolution ‘circle Northern Rock’ July 28, 2011 Businessmen Richard Branson and Clive Cowdery, founder of insurance takeover specialist Resolution, are expected to be among the bidders for nationalised bank Northern Rock, people familiar with the matter said. Branson’s Virgin Money and Cowdery’s Resolution were likely to make first-round expressions of interest in Northern Rock this week to UK Financial Investments, the organisation [...]
Yorkshire Building Society buys Egg assets from Citi July 25, 2011 BRITISH mortgage lender Yorkshire Building Society is to buy the mortgage and savings business of Egg Banking from US bank Citigroup, as Citi continues to sell non-core assets after its bailout during the credit crisis. Yorkshire, owned by its customers, said the Egg businesses it was acquiring comprised of a £2.5bn savings book and a [...]
Yorkshire to buy Egg units from Citi July 25, 2011 Mortgage lender Yorkshire Building Society is to buy the mortgage and savings business of Egg Banking from American bank Citigroup, as Citi continues to sell non-core assets after its bailout during the credit crisis. Yorkshire, owned by its customers, said the Egg businesses it was acquiring comprised of a £2.5bn savings book and a 430 [...]