UK house prices record surprise jump despite looming stamp duty deadline February 15, 2021 UK house prices recorded a surprise jump this month as buyers were undeterred by the looming stamp duty holiday deadline. After three consecutive monthly falls the average price of property coming to market increased 0.5 per cent – or £1,511 – this month. The number of new buyers has continued to grow despite the fact [...]
Mitchells & Butlers seeks £350m cash injection as major shareholders take control February 15, 2021 Major shareholders in Mitchells & Butlers (M&B), the owner of All Bar One and Toby Carvery, have taken control of the pub group as it seeks to raise £350m to keep it afloat. The firm said this morning that it intends to raise £350m through an underwritten fully preemptive open offer to address its “significant [...]
London property developer Avanton launches £500m build-to-rent fund February 15, 2021 London property developer Avanton has launched a £500m fund to build new rental homes in the capital. The company said the fund will be used to buy land in inner London boroughs and deliver 5,000 build-to-rent homes by 2023, in a vote of confidence in the city’s recovery after Covid. It said that “despite the [...]
High street redundancies: Which retailers have cut jobs in the pandemic so far? February 13, 2021 Thousands of high street jobs have evaporated during the coronavirus pandemic, as retail chains have fallen under the pressure of lockdown restrictions on trading. The UK high street, which was already struggling before the pandemic, is set to look very different when shoppers return after lockdown following high profile collapses that have cost many retail [...]
Google and Microsoft object to Nvidia’s $40bn Arm takeover February 13, 2021 Google and Microsoft have objected to the $40bn (£29bn) takeover of British chipmaker arm by Nvidia as the deal faces an in-depth competition probe in the US. The two tech giants, as well as semiconductor rival Qualcomm, are among the companies to object to the mammoth merger amid concerns it could harm competition. The US [...]
Runaway inflation might not happen. But what if it does? February 13, 2021 As 2021 dawned, we were all inevitably thinking thank Goodness 2020 is over. And fair enough. But I felt a little less easy when friends went on to say, 2021 can’t be any worse. Actually, how can we know? Think of January 1666: was the average Londoner – say, a baker on Pudding Lane – thinking, thank Goodness [...]
Corona Impact Series: How a creative workspace was dragged into a work-from-home experiment February 12, 2021 In this series, City A.M. looks at the financial and economic impact of the ongoing pandemic on a range of small and medium-sized businesses across London. This week: How a workspace provider with spaces across the UK, including in Soho and Westminster, gradually changed the work mindset of its office clients. No one could have [...]
Bitcoin + Gold = BOLD February 11, 2021 Tesla announced that they had invested $1.5bn in bitcoin and the price duly surged. Markets are more efficient than many believe, and in recent months, the bitcoin price has responded positively to known investment flows more than anything else. Back in the day, Bitcoin would spike on news that a coffee shop accepted payment in [...]
Native tokens on Cardano February 11, 2021 Last week, IOHK, developers of the Cardano blockchain, updated the platform’s ‘native tokens’ testnet. The upgrade provides multi-asset support, allowing experimenters on the testnet to test and become familiar with utilising cryptocurrencies from other blockchains on Cardano and creating their own tokens prior to mainnet deployment. The update introduces the ability to create ‘native tokens’. [...]
London pubs and restaurants face ‘bombshell’ without action on business rates, Khan says February 10, 2021 London pubs, restaurants, shops and other hospitality firms have saved more than £3bn due to the business rates holiday, it was revealed today, as pressure mounted on the government to extend the break. Figures showed that 73,140 retail, leisure and hospitality businesses in the capital had benefited from the business rates holiday during the pandemic [...]