Good morning. Here is your AM bulletin, with the latest news and views from EG, as well as a few of the best bits from the morning papers.
Grainger has topped an “outstanding year of record delivery” by announcing a 2,000-home partnership between its Blocwork jv and Network Rail. Network Rail will hand over the land, Bloc will develop and Grainger will invest, own and manage.
Meanwhile, LXi has confirmed that the £210m sale of a portfolio of 66 Travelodge hotels is in solicitors’ hands.
And Helical is hopeful that its development portfolio will give it a growth spurt, as it declares a half-year loss of £93m.
Later today the chancellor will stand up in the Commons to unveil his Autumn Statement. There was once a time when a chancellor would have been sacked for leaking details of a Budget before his speech, but those days are long gone. Instead we can be fairly certain that a permanent extension to “full expensing” will take centre stage for business, while a 1% cut in national insurance is also tipped. And there will be some supply side reforms, including forward movement on simplifying the planning system. We will bring you more detail later today.
In other news, Salesloft has taken space in CIT’s Hylo building, EC1, for its new London HQ, at £82.50 per sq ft.
“Biodiversity underpins human life, from the air we breathe to the food we eat and the water we drink,” EG hears from FEC’s Faye Dasi-Sutton. But is now the time to be putting additional costs on developers? What should take precedence, plants or jobs?
Is it game, set and match for the All England Lawn Tennis Club’s plans to triple the size of Wimbledon? Wandsworth Council has rejected an application to add 38 courts and an 8,000-seat stadium, with the club saying it will appeal to the umpire. Sorry, mayor.
Across the channel, property companies in the eurozone are facing surging losses and higher debts than before the 2008 financial crisis, the European Central Bank has warned.
And Altice has agreed to sell a majority stake in its French data centre business to a Morgan Stanley infrastructure fund. Morgan Stanley Infrastructure Partners will take a 70% stake in the 257-centre network, giving it an enterprise value of €764m.
Meanwhile, CBRE UK is set to become real estate’s first officially “fertility friendly” firm.
To send feedback, e-mail piers.wehner@eg.co.uk or tweet @PiersWehner or @EGPropertyNews
