Gym group David Lloyd is for sale March 5, 2017 David Lloyd owners are preparing to sell the gym chain for £1.3bn, according to The Telegraph. A sale of the gym group, which runs 83 clubs in the UK and 12 in the Netherlands, Belgium and Spain, is expected to draw considerable interest from private equity investors. However, the sale cannot proceed until a prior [...]
Property of the week: Ovington Square proves that vendors are looking for flexible solutions to sell their homes in an uncertain market March 3, 2017 It’s no secret that property prices in prime central London are starting to plateau and, in some cases, fall. We’re all aware of the problems – overzealous estate agents, Stamp Duty increases, Brexit – but how can you make the best of it if you’re selling your house? Prime estate agency Russell Simpson thinks it’s [...]
Focus On Queen’s Park: Good schools, shops and value lure families to north west London March 3, 2017 Garden towns and villages have made a surprising comeback of late, largely as a by-product of our desperate search for a solution to the housing crisis. The government announced at the start of the year that it intended to build three new towns of 10,000 houses each, in a bid to reach a target of [...]
These are the three London areas where house prices fell in January March 3, 2017 House prices are steadily climbing in most parts of the capital – but tax changes on high-end homes have been pushing down values in the city's most central locations. According to data from Hometrack, there were three local authority areas in London where house prices fell year-on-year in January: London local authority House price change [...]
Formula 1 plans to move to a new global HQ in St James’s Market March 2, 2017 Formula 1 is moving its global headquarters from Knightsbridge to a £400m development in the West End. The motorsports business will be taking up 21,000 square feet of space over two floors of a redevelopment by the Crown Estate and Oxford Properties called St James's Market. It is expected to make the move later this [...]
How to profit from the Chinese art market and bag some cutting edge paintings while you’re at it March 2, 2017 Which country has the world’s largest art market? Hint: if you’re thinking anything other than “China”, then you’re wrong. Art information website artprice.com estimates that in the first half of 2016, China accounted for 35.5 per cent of the $6.53bn global art sales. Someone out there is making a killing from the Chinese art market, [...]
Tinkering with business rates won’t fix a fundamentally broken tax on investment March 2, 2017 Business rates reform is crucial for the health of local communities across the country. Retailers pay a quarter of all business rates and it is the single largest tax paid by the industry. Put simply, the burden of property taxation is too high. It is a disincentive to invest in physical space. A system where [...]
FTSE reshuffle day: Capita and Dixons Carphone replaced by Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust and Rentokil Initial March 1, 2017 Capita and Dixons Carphone have dropped out of the FTSE 100 after its quarterly review of constituents. They will be replaced by Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust and Rentokil Initial, FTSE Russell announced this evening. However, Easyjet and Intu Properties escaped the chop, which will take effect after the close of business on Friday 17 March. Read [...]
UK housebuilders’ shares rise as mortgage approvals hit highest level since February last year March 1, 2017 Housebuilders' share prices rose today after figures from the Bank of England showed that in January mortgage approvals hit the highest level since February 2016. The Bank reported a 2.4 per cent month-on-month rise in January, bringing the number of mortgages to 69,928. Read more: UK house prices rose by just £600 last month This [...]
The Chelsea house price plunge: here’s how low prices will go March 1, 2017 Stamp duty changes rocked the central London housing market last year as buyers became less keen to fork out thousands of pounds in transaction taxes for homes worth over £1m. Asking prices on high-end homes in London's most affluent boroughs were slashed – some by as much as 30 per cent – as home-movers sought [...]