London's Shard tower opens with empty floors and flat rents - Reuters UK
LONDON |
LONDON (Reuters) - Superstar architect Renzo Piano calls the European Union's new tallest building a "vertical city", but when his stunning Shard tower opens on Thursday over London Bridge it will house the equivalent of a whole vacant neighbourhood.
The elongated glass pyramid, built atop a train station in a scruffy neighbourhood near the Thames, will open with 26 floors of vacant office space, and developers have to fill it at a time when rents are at the flattest in at least 50 years.
The Shard's developers are spared from market wrath solely because the building was built with funding by the deep-pocketed royal family of Qatar, rather than a publicly listed firm, said John Cahill, a property analyst at Investec.
"With the Shard's office floors still empty, it would be panic stations if it was a listed developer behind it," he said.
Long gone are the days in London's commercial real estate market when the Foster + Parners-designed 30 St Mary Axe, known as "the Gherkin" because of its oblong shape, opened in the financial district in April 2004 with all floors already let.
The Shard is just one of several skyscrapers now sprouting across London with nicknames that reflect the silhouettes they cast on the skyline. But with a financial crisis having blown in since architects first came up with designs for the "Walkie Talkie" and the "Cheese Grater", lettings have been muted.
Rents for the best offices in London's financial district - the yardstick used by Shard developer Irvine Sellar for the offices at the bottom of the tower - have been 55 pounds per square foot since September 2010, property consultant CBRE (CBG.N) said. That is the longest period of flat rents since its records began in 1960.
"The only reason rents haven't started to fall is the relatively low level of available space at the moment," said Kevin McCauley, head of central London research at CBRE, who expects rents to remain flat for the rest of the year.
The Walkie-Talkie, also known as 20 Fenchurch Street, is being developed by Land Securities (LAND.L) and Canary Wharf Group. The Leadenhall tower - the official name of the Cheese Grater - is being funded by British Land (BLND.L) and the property arm the Ontario, Canada city workers' retirement fund.
NEW MODEL
Developers say a wave of lease breaks and expiries over the next several years will prompt tenants to move into well-appointed new offices.
"Why would you drive around in a 1970s car when you can have a 2012 model?" said Sellar, an entrepreneur who began his career with a clothing store on London's Carnaby Street.
So far, it hasn't worked out that way. Work has halted at the Pinnacle skyscraper on Bishopsgate, which will remain a stump in the ground until a major slice is let. And developers of a neighbouring tower at 100 Bishopsgate say they will only begin once a large tenant is signed up.
If the climate is bothering the Qatari funders of the Shard, they did not say so at an opening event on Wednesday.
"Recovering our investment is a minor thing at the moment," said Sheikh Abdullah Bin Saoud Al Thani, governor of Qatar Central Bank.
The development cost of the Shard, a neighbouring office building called The Place and communal areas around London Bridge train station is about 1.5 billion pounds.
"We have confidence in the London market and a long relationship with London," he said, emphasising that a slowdown was part of a normal economic cycle.
The only tenant so far is the 195-room Shangri-La hotel, which will occupy floors 34 to 52 of the 87-storey tower. S ellar expects the rest of the building to be fully occupied by the end of 2014, conceding it was a long-term view he could take only because of the Qatari backing.
He will have to lure tenants like media and financial firms to venture to the opposite bank of the Thames from the City, the traditional financial district. He says the Shard's location will save commuters who arrive by train from walking across London bridge in the rain. Others are unconvinced.
"A lot of traditional City tenants refuse to cross the river to even have a look," said Simon Wainwright, managing director of property consultancy J Peiser Wainwright. "In a nutshell it's a bridge too far for many," he said.
Sellar scoffed. "That's absolutely ridiculous... We've been very selective as to who can even come and view the building. Just look up the road at Ernst & Young and PWC and you realise you are in the middle of a financial district."
Discussions are underway with tenants for about a third of the office space, he said.
The Qataris, who also London's Harrods department store and the luxury One Hyde Park apartment scheme in Knightsbridge, are not the only rich foreigners buying into London real estate.
Overseas buyers have invested 15.8 billion pounds in London offices since 2010, 64 percent of the total, CBRE said. Middle Eastern investors accounted for 11 percent, or 2.8 billion pounds. And foreign ownership of the City financial district stands at 52 percent, Development Securities (DSC.L) said.
"Clearly the recent appreciation of Sterling has had little effect on overseas investor's views that central London is providing both good value and a safe haven," said Simon Barrowcliff, a CBRE executive director.
But the next wave of investors do not appear to be putting so much money into skyscrapers. Ken Shuttleworth, the architect who led the team behind the Gherkin while at Foster + Partners, said no plans for London skyscrapers were crossing his desk.
"In the current economic climate, we are basically only working on skyscrapers in the Far East," he said.
(Reporting by Tom Bill)
Lookers acquires Lomond Motors in £15m deal - menmedia.co.uk
Car dealership Lookers has splashed out £15m for a business in Scotland.
Manchester-based Lookers has bought Lomond Motors, which operates Audi dealerships in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Stirling and Ayr. Lomond, which was owned by Hugh McMahon, also distributes trade parts for the VW Group in Glasgow and Edinburgh.
The business achieved pre-tax profits of £700,000 in 2011.
Peter Jones, chief executive of Lookers, said: “The acquisition is an important development in the group's representation of the Audi brand and our relationship with the VW Group and we are very pleased to be representing the brands in such key locations.”
The takeover strengthens Lookers' presence north of the border, where it operates as Taggarts Motor Group in Glasgow and Motherwell.
*New car sales rose again last month, figures from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders.
There were 189,514 new registrations in June 2012 - a 3.49 per cent increase on the June 2011 total.
Last month's purchases took year-so-far sales to 1,057,680 - a 2.72 per cent rise on January-June 2011.
The top five best-selling models last month were the Ford Fiesta, Vauxhall Corsa, Ford Focus, Volkswagen Golf and BMW 3 Series.
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Bollards make it a 'holiday from hell' for Bahrain family - Burton Mail
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Adel Shaji spoke to the Mail just moments after his rented grey Vauxhall Corsa was impaled at the library end of High Street around 12.30pm yesterday. Mr Shaji, who was travelling with his wife and two children, revealed how the incident unfolded.Bolt forced out of London warm-up by mystery injury - The Independent
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London 2012: No Wales sanction for Olympic four - BBC News
Aaron Ramsey and his Wales team-mates will face no repercussions over their involvement in the GB Olympic team, the Football Association of Wales has said.
Ramsey, Craig Bellamy, Joe Allen and Neil Taylor have defied the FAW's wish by agreeing to play at London 2012.
The FAW oppose Team GB, fearing it could threaten Wales' independence.
But chief executive Jonathan Ford said: "We've always made it very clear, we're not going to put any sanctions on any players."
Former Wales captain Ryan Giggs takes the Welsh contingent in the 18-man GB squad to five, selected alongside Bellamy as one of three players allowed over the age of 23.
Gareth Bale was also set to be involved but a back injury has prevented the Tottenham Hotspur winger from taking part.
The four involved face the possibility of another kind of sanction, though, as suspensions from red cards not served during the Olympics will be carried over to the next competitive Wales game.
With no players selected, Scotland and Northern Ireland will be unaffected for their World Cup qualifiers in September, while no English player in the Olympic squad featured in Roy Hodgson plans for Euro 2012.
That leaves Ramsey, Bellamy, Allen and Taylor treading a disciplinary tightrope as they aim for an Olympic medal.
Ford added: "It was always their decision. They knew where we stood.
"Ultimately they were able to make the decision themselves and let's just hope they come back to us fighting fit for our World Cup qualifiers in September."
Wales begin preparations for those World Cup qualifiers in August with a friendly against Bosnia-Hercegovina in Llanelli on 15 August, four days after the men's Olympic final at Wembley Stadium
Chris Coleman's men will welcome Belgium to Cardiff on 7 September in the opening qualifier for Brazil 2014, before facing Serbia away four days later.
Ford said he wished the Welsh players well at the Olympics but said the tournament, which includes a Great Britain team for the first time since 1960, would never come near to the prestige of international football's two major events.
"I'm pretty damn sure there's no player that would give up the Fifa World Cup winners' medal or a Uefa European Championship winners' medal for an [Olympic] gold medal," he said.
"I'm pretty damn sure that's the pinnacle of our sport and that's unfortunately something that will always stay."
London police arrest six terrorism suspects - Reuters UK
LONDON |
LONDON (Reuters) - Five men and a woman suspected of preparing terrorist attacks were arrested during early morning police raids across London on Thursday, police said.
Police said the operation was not linked to the Olympics, which start in London on July 27, but was part of a planned intelligence-led operation.
A security source said the London arrests were related to international Islamist militancy and were made at an early stage of plotting. It was not clear if any targets were identified.
During the raids, a 29-year-old man was arrested on a street in west London while the others, aged between 18 and 30, were detained at residential addresses in east and west London.
A 24-year-old man was tasered by police with a stun gun during the operation by armed officers but did not require hospital treatment.
Police said the six were arrested on suspicion of the "commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism".
Detectives were searching eight homes in east, west and north London, and one business address in east London.
In a separate and apparently unrelated incident, armed police closed both carriageways of a motorway near Britain's second biggest city, Birmingham, after reports of a man acting suspiciously on a coach heading for London.
British security forces are on high alert for any signs of trouble ahead of the Olympics. Seven years ago this week suicide bombers killed 52 people in a string of coordinated attacks in London.
The motorway incident proved to be a false alarm. Police said they did not consider it to be a counter-terrorism situation and they were not treating anyone as suspect.
(Reporting by Tim Castle and Phil Noble, Additional reporting by Alessandra Prentice; Editing by Alison Williams)
London Firm Wins Cash Prize For Euro Exit Plan - Sky.com
London-Based Consultancy Wins 'Euro Exit' Prize
Updated: 3:21pm UK, Thursday 05 July 2012
Below is a summary of the winning Capital Economics submission:
If member states leave the Economic and Monetary Union, what is the best way for the economic process to be managed to provide the soundest foundation for the future growth and prosperity of the current membership?
• The most realistic scenario for euro break-up is that one or more of the weaker peripheral countries will leave the euro-zone, introduce a new currency which then falls sharply, and default on a large part of their government debt. Other forms of break-up are possible but the analysis of these will involve the same issues, albeit, in the case of strong countries leaving, often with the signs reversed. Accordingly, our analysis centres on the departure of a single weak member, and we then note any instance where the issues and conclusions need to be modified for other forms of break-up.
• It will not be possible to be open about preparations to leave for more than a very short period of time without precipitating damaging outflows of money which could cause a banking collapse. Accordingly, preparations must be made in secret by a
small group of officials and then acted on more or less straightaway.
• Given the short time from announcement to implementation, it will not be possible to have new notes and coins available immediately when a country exits the euro. This is unfortunate, but it is not as serious as is often imagined. The authorities should
allow euro notes and coins to continue to be used for small transactions. But straight after the decision to leave the euro has been announced, they should commission new notes and coins to be produced as soon as possible.
• In order to facilitate the convenient use of euro notes and coins, to help to maintain price transparency and to boost confidence in the new regime, we recommend that the new currency, say the drachma, is introduced at parity with the euro.
Accordingly, where a price used to be 1.35 euros, it would now be 1.35 drachmas.
Of course, the drachma would be free to fall on the foreign exchange markets and indeed it is vital that it should do so.
• We reckon that if any or all of the weaker members of the euro-zone left, their currencies would depreciate by something like 30-50%. This would add another 10% to consumer prices, or even more, which, spread over two years, would cause the annual rate of inflation to rise by roughly half this figure. But international experience suggests that such a spike can be short-lived and inflation can then return to something like its previous level.
• Just before departure, some form of capital controls will be essential, including at least closure of the banks. But after departure, capital controls should be avoided and, if used, should be withdrawn as soon as possible.
• The government should redenominate its debt in the new national currency and make clear its intention to renegotiate the terms of this debt. This is likely to involve a substantial default – perhaps sufficient to reduce the ratio of debt to GDP to 60%.
But the government should also make clear its intention to resume servicing its remaining debt as soon as practically possible.
Roger Bootle
Managing Director
• In order to restore confidence further, we recommend that the exiting country immediately announces a regime of inflation targeting, monitored by a body of independent experts, adopts a set of tough fiscal rules, outlaws wage indexation, but
announces the issue of index-linked government bonds. The government should also continue with structural reforms designed to increase the flexibility of product and labour markets.
• The national central bank of the exiting country should stand ready to inject liquidity into its own banking system, if necessary by quantitative easing. The monetary authorities should also announce their willingness to recapitalise the banks
if necessary.
• The authorities should provide as much clarity as possible on the legal issues, including the status of the exiting country’s membership of the European Union and the impact on international contracts currently denominated in euros. EU approval
would also be needed for any capital controls, but this would have to be sought retrospectively. All of this would require close cooperation with other EU member states and institutions, including countries in the Northern core.
• At the same time, to minimise the risk of contagion to other countries that might otherwise wish to remain within the euro (and whose interests are best served in the long-term by doing so), the Northern core may need to accept faster progress
towards full fiscal and political union.
• Domestic economic policy may also have to adapt. Indeed, policymakers in the Northern core should have more freedom once they are no longer constrained by the need to set an example for weaker countries that have left. Since the value of the euro
would rise, the Northern core would initially suffer from a loss of domestic demand, although it would enjoy a lower inflation rate. This combination would give it the incentive to undertake measures to boost domestic demand, especially through monetary policy and structural reforms.
• Such a rebalancing of the economy away from reliance on net exports would be in the interests of the whole of the current membership of the euro-zone, as well as countries outside it.
• Overall, our analysis has revealed a series of very tricky issues which any exiting country would need to face. But all of these difficulties can be overcome.
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