Standard Life in £42m deal for Focus Solutions December 7, 2010 Standard Life has agreed to buy financial software company Focus Solutions Group for £42m, in a deal the insurer said would boost its customer services. Standard Life said that it was offering 140 pence in cash for each Focus Solutions share, representing a premium of around 9.8 per cent to Focus Solution’s closing share price [...]
Home-builders ramp up incentives to lure hard-up first-time buyers December 2, 2010 HOME-BUILDERS have always offered buyers deals, but some are more valuable than others. Take, for example, the West Bromwich Building Society’s offer in 2004 of a free Rover car worth over £7,000 – a year before the car-maker went into administration. The downturn has left house-builders with new-builds sitting empty all over the country, and [...]
House prices down 3.9 per cent on June December 1, 2010 HOUSE prices fell by another 0.3 per cent in November, mortgage-lender Nationwide announced yesterday. The news follows an even sharper drop in the previous month, as prices fell 0.7 per cent on September. Prices have either fallen or stagnated since June, according to Nationwide’s statistics. The average house price in the UK is now £163,398, [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING November 25, 2010 FINANCIAL TIMES AIRLINE FINANCING RIFT DEEPENS Ryanair and Emirates have taken the unusual step of joining forces with eight other airlines as a multibillion-dollar row over aircraft financing starts to split the world’s largest airlines into two rival camps. The Irish budget airline and Dubai’s Emirates normally shun industry alliances. But yesterday they revealed they [...]
Paragon sees lending return as rents rise November 24, 2010 UK SPECIALIST mortgage lender Paragon Group said yesterday it expected lending to increase as a result of higher demand in the private rented sector as it reported higher-than-expected full-year results. The lender said profit before tax stood at £71.8m for the year to 30 September 2010, up almost 25 per cent from £54.3m the previous [...]
Nationwide says house price slump unlikely November 23, 2010 Nationwide Building Society, Britain’s second-biggest mortgage lender, reported a 26 per cent jump in first-half profit, and said it did not expect big house price falls despite signs of property market weakness. Nationwide, which publishes a closely watched monthly house price survey, said major price falls were unlikely in 2011 because continued low interest rates [...]
Growing euro crisis raises the stakes November 22, 2010 IT’s all starting to feel a little too much like we’ve returned to 2007. First a few little-known mortgage lenders, then Bear Stearns (Greece) in early 2008, then Freddie and Fannie (Ireland) – and then, eventually Lehman Brothers (Italy or Spain?) and the whole pack of cards came crashing downs. What at each stage seemed [...]
Mortgage lending slumps November 18, 2010 Gross mortgage lending last month was the lowest October total since 2000, according to figures released yesterday. The Council of Mortgage Lenders estimated that lending was down nine per cent, from £13.6bn in October 2009 to £12.4bn last month. The figures coincided with fresh Bank of England data on the level of mortgage lending by [...]
Investing your love in bricks and mortar November 18, 2010 1 BUDGET Before you start the fun stuff – househunting – make sure you have covered the boring stuff: finances. Work out how much you can afford to put towards mortgage repayments each month, based on your joint net income, and joint outgoings. If, like Kate and William, you are thoroughly modern and are already [...]
Blackstone and TPG line up to bid for troubled Egg bank November 17, 2010 BLACKSTONE and TPG are believed to be preparing a bid for US lender Citigroup’s online bank Egg. Citigroup bought the unit in May 2007 for £546m from British insurer Prudential. However binding offers are expected to fall well short of that level, at around £300m. Barclays bank is also believed to have an interest in [...]