WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING December 14, 2010 FINANCIAL TIMES INVESTOR IRE OVER SIG CHIEF’S PAY Investec Asset Management has hit out at the board of SIG for ignoring investor outcry about the amount its chief executive is being paid. Investec, which owns 3.3 per cent of the Sheffield-based insulation and plasterboard maker, has written a letter to SIG to protest against a [...]
Homeowners relaxed about negative equity December 14, 2010 IN the latest YouGov SixthSense Mortgages Report, mortgage holders were asked to estimate the current value of their household and cost of their mortgage. Ninety-one per cent who were able to give these figures were in positive equity with nearly one in ten recording a no equity or negative equity score. This data is in [...]
Property prices fall 3pc December 13, 2010 ASKING prices for homes in England and Wales have fallen three per cent over the past month to stand just 0.4 per cent higher than a year ago, due to economic uncertainty and low mortgage approvals, according to property website Rightmove. December’s fall follows a 3.2 per cent decline in November, with further drops possible [...]
500,000 households in negative equity December 12, 2010 CLOSE to half a million British households could be facing negative equity, according to survey released today by the Bank of England. Between four and five per cent of mortgage holders owe more than the value of their properties, it was revealed in the Bank’s final quarterly bulletin of this year. There are 11.4m mortgages in [...]
Irish banks will offer to restructure December 8, 2010 NATIONALISED lenders Anglo Irish and Irish Nationwide Building Society will submit a joint restructuring plan to the European Commission proposing they be merged and run down over time. The plan, which must be completed by the end of March, was one of the demands the IMF, European Commission and European Central Bank made as a [...]
Bellway profit rises by 20pc December 7, 2010 British housebuilder Bellway said home reservations for the four months to November end were above its expectations, putting it on course for a 20 per cent increase in first-half pre-tax profit. “The decline in consumer confidence appears to have levelled out and people are still committing to purchase even at this time of year,” the [...]
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 [...]