Birmingham landmark on sale in cut-price deal as value slashed in half March 11, 2025 A landmark office building in Birmingham city centre has been put up for sale for half what it was bought for in 2019. The Lewis Building and its adjoining neighbour Priory Court in Bull Street were acquired by Gulf Islamic Investments for £140m. The investor, which has offices in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, bought the [...]
Planning bill will ‘avoid bat tunnels’, housing minister claims March 11, 2025 The government hopes its planning reforms will “avoid bat tunnels”, the housing minister has said. It comes as Labour unveiled major changes to the UK’s planning permissions system – as part of the Planning and Infrastructure Bill – with measures to overhaul how developers meet environmental obligations, replacing site-specific schemes with a general fund. Speaking [...]
Alan Sugar’s empire hails record profit despite falling sales March 11, 2025 A group controlled by The Apprentice star Lord Alan Sugar has posted a record profit despite falling sales, it has been revealed. Amshold Trading has reported a pre-tax profit of £10.8m for the 12 months to 30 September, 2024, up from the £8.4m it achieved in the prior period. However, new accounts filed with Companies [...]
Buy-to-let market ‘resilient’ despite fears of landlord exodus March 11, 2025 UK landlords are more optimistic than previously thought about buy-to-let as the market gears up to absorb economic and regulatory challenges, according to a new survey. A survey of 300 UK landlords has found that a third of landlords plan to expand their portfolios this year, while 43 per cent expect yields to improve. “It [...]
Lloyd’s of London expects £1.8bn hit from Californian wildfires March 10, 2025 Lloyd’s of London, the historic insurance market, has reported a 6.5 per cent increase in premiums written for 2024. In a trading update published this morning ahead of its full results, which are set to be released on 20 March 2025, Lloyd’s said gross written premiums increased £55.5bn from £52.1bn in the prior year. Lloyd’s [...]
Assura likely to recommend new KKR offer to investors March 10, 2025 Healthcare property group Assura said it has received an indicative, non-binding proposal from KKR and Stonepeak Partners for 49.4p per share. The offer, which is a premium of 31.9 per cent to the closing share price of 37.4 pence on February 13, values Assura’s share capital at about £1.6bn. Assura’s share price shot up by [...]
Housebuilder Persimmon to post higher profit amid slow recovery in demand March 9, 2025 Housebuilder Persimmon is expected to report a rebound in profits next week after two years of steep declines, after the housing market made a slow recovery in 2024. The FTSE 100 company will post its financial results for last year on Tuesday In January, Persimmon said profit would come in towards the top end of [...]
Can the ‘hotelification’ of the office beat working from home? March 8, 2025 London offices are offering monogrammed towels and rooftop gardens to tempt staff back into work, says Alex Morgan Some of the world’s largest companies are pulling the plug on hybrid working, but not without a hitch. In the US, Amazon’s return-to-office (RTO) mandate has been put on pause because of a shortage of desks in [...]
UK mortgage brokers expect interest rates to jump March 7, 2025 According to a new study, over two-thirds of UK mortgage brokers expect interest rates to stop falling and resume their upward trend by the beginning of next year. Butterfield Mortgages surveyed 300 brokers and 69 per cent said they believed the Bank of England base rate would be higher than the current level of 4.5 per cent [...]
The Co-op admits blocking rivals from opening competing stores March 5, 2025 The Co-op has become the latest major UK supermarket to fall foul of a targeted campaign by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) to stop the use of ‘unlawful land agreements’ in grocery retailing. The group has admitted to 107 breaches of an order to stop supermarkets imposing restrictions that block rivals from opening competing [...]