Post Office offers 95pc mortgage April 7, 2014 The Post Office yesterday unveiled its new range of mortgages using the Help to Buy loan guarantee scheme. Using the government support it will offer 95 per cent mortgages to house buyers with small deposits saved up. Its two-year loans will be on offer with an interest rate beginning at 4.95 per cent. The new [...]
How one London council is cutting tax while improving services April 2, 2014 THOSE touring Hammersmith and Fulham to buy or rent property will often find estate agents mentioning council tax. While other bills keep rising, council tax in the borough, where I am a councillor, keeps coming down. It is due to drop by another 3 per cent in April next year. In 2006, council tax, at [...]
Sales of new homes in Canary Wharf soar April 2, 2014 Residential activity in Canary Wharf is booming, according to new figures from property consultants JLL today which show that the business-focussed district enjoyed one of the highest levels of sales of new homes last year. New unit sales have increased from 400 in 2012 to 1,050 in 2013, pushing values up to an average of [...]
Host Brandreth outshines the gong winners March 28, 2014 LONDON’S share price heroes were out in force last night at the KPMG UK Stock Market Awards but there wasn’t a winner in the room that could make as much of an impression as host Gyles Brandreth did as he blustered his way through the gong list. Brandreth mistook absent EasyJet boss Carolyn McCall (travel [...]
Inside Track: Cenkos is driving an AA float, but the handbrake is still on March 26, 2014 YOU KNOW things are getting toppy when Cenkos is hawking accelerated IPOs around the City,” a fund manager told me over lunch last week. While he said it half in jest, he had a point. The investment bank whose rainmakers pioneered the technique during their time at Collins Stewart are back in their old routine. [...]
One Reddit user said Zuck was visiting Oculus’ offices a month ago – and everyone ignored him March 26, 2014 The latest addition to Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook empire has gotten many of Reddit's users very heated up. A part of the messageboard dedicated to Oculus Rift, which the social media giant announced it would be acquiring yesterday, is filled with anti-Facebook entries. Maybe that's why one user was ignored when he reported that the Facebook [...]
Great culinary feats can still be achieved, even if you only have a microwave in your office kitchen March 25, 2014 FOREVER associated with the processed, the prepackaged and the unsophisticated, the microwave gets a bad rep within foodie circles. The microwave meal has come to symbolise everything that’s wrong with today’s food culture. They make our cooking easy and unhealthy, fast and fatty, and facilitate our tendency to prioritise convenience over care, The way that [...]
Majestic shares dumped after profit warning March 20, 2014 INVESTORS uncorked their shares in Majestic Wine yesterday after the specialist wine retailer warned that a dry spell in February sales had flattened full-year profits. Chief executive Steve Lewis said that trading conditions since the more buoyant Christmas period have been “challenging” and that with just two weeks to go until its year-end, it now [...]
Co-op reshuffles management in group’s first wave of reforms March 19, 2014 THE MANAGEMENT team at the Co-op was reshuffled yesterday in the embattled group’s latest bid to show the leadership is serious about reforming its structure. It came as the mutual delayed its annual results and general meeting from next week to 17 April. The shake-up is the first stage of a series of reforms which [...]
Care specialist Cambian set to float in London March 19, 2014 CARE homes and specialist schools operator Cambian is to join the London stock market in a float that is believed to value the firm at north of £500m. Cambian announced its initial public offering yesterday, after a rise in outsourcing from local authorities and the NHS has given the firm a major chance to expand [...]