London house prices and UK rent rises to slow in 2015 December 18, 2014 London house prices are set to stall in 2015, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) said today. Prices in the UK are forecast to grow by three per cent in 2015, yet in the capital growth will be zero. Rents in the UK are expected to increase by just two per [...]
LondonMetric buys new shed December 18, 2014 LONDONMETRIC is hoping to tap into the booming online retail market after agreeing to buy a warehouse let to The Hut Group for £47.5m. The property group is buying the Warrington site from local developer Omega Warrington ahead of its completion next year. The new 690,000 square feet distribution centre has been pre-let to the [...]
City Moves for 19 December 2014 | Who’s switching jobs December 18, 2014 FTI Consulting Clare Hartnell has been appointed senior managing director in the business advisory firm’s European tax advisory practice, focusing on real estate tax. She was most recently global leader of Grant Thornton’s real estate and construction practice, and has also worked at BDO. EY Monica Dimitracopoulos has been appointed principal and global knowledge transformation [...]
Is Vladimir Putin right that Russia’s economy will be back on its feet within two years? December 18, 2014 Steen Jakobsen, chief economist at Saxo Bank, says Yes. Russia’s citizens have been here before – they know the drill. Everything looks terrible now, but the positive spin is that we could see a new start in 2015. A solution to the Ukraine crisis is a pre-condition, laying to rest the political and financial stand-off [...]
This £45m mansion could have just netted the government £5.3m in stamp duty December 18, 2014 A 19-bedroom Mayfair mansion that's just been sold with an asking price of £45m may have just made the government £5.3m. Seven Balfour Place from the outside The 13,000 sq ft mansion, on Balfour Place, also comes with seven reception rooms, six kitchens, 17 bathrooms and a roof terrace. The company in charge of selling [...]
UK house builder Galliford Try wins £250m Ministry of Defence contract in Scotland December 18, 2014 Housebuilding and construction group Galliford Try has won a sizeable contract with a sizeable name: the Ministry of Defence's (MoD) Next Generation Estates Framework for Capital Works Projects in Scotland, which is worth £250m. The deal, which was landed by Galliford's Integrated Solutions business, will run for four years, netting Galliford that £250m in chunks [...]
Xmas bargains await British homebuyers December 17, 2014 A THIRD of all UK properties currently on the market have seen their asking prices lowered at least once since being put up for sale, research from British property website Zoopla revealed yesterday. The figure is up from 27 per cent earlier this year and represents the highest level of discounting since August 2012. A [...]
City Moves for 18 December 2014 | Who’s switching jobs December 17, 2014 Rightster The Aim-listed video distribution and monetisation network has appointed Niall Dore as group finance director. He was previously finance director at Betfair Group, and has also held group financial controller positions at GE Life and Hyder Consulting. Zeus Capital Hugo Chance has been appointed director, head of family offices, at the independent investment bank. [...]
Chatting to the Queen about the smartphone era December 16, 2014 The boss of Imagination tells Ollie Gordon how he discussed tech with Elizabeth II IT WASN’T something I was expecting, it was hugely humbling,” says Sir Hossein Yassaie of the knighthood he received from the Queen in the New Year’s Honours list last year in recognition of his services to technology and innovation. Yassaie, the [...]
Cerberus takes a £2.3bn bite of property loans December 16, 2014 AMERICAN private equity giant Cerberus has agreed to buy two portfolios of distressed property loans for £2.3bn as it looks to up its exposure to the UK and Irish markets, it emerged yesterday. Cerberus struck deals to take on a £1.2bn portfolio of commercial property loans from National Australia Bank and a £1.1bn portfolio of [...]