Good morning.
It’s pancake day, and Rishi Sunak is getting a battering. Surveyors have told the chancellor to return to discussions over business rates, saying the decision to halt talks was “outrageous”(£).
Meanwhile the IFS(£) and his own MPs(£) have warned the chancellor not to increase taxes(£) at next month’s budget.
The FT (£) says the Sunak should look at reviving the Excess Profit Duty, which helped pay for the First World War.
NewRiver REIT and Hammerson were among yesterday’s top real estate risers, as London-listed stocks enjoyed a boost(£) on optimism over the vaccine rollout.
WeWork is to move out of a 50,000 sq ft Shoreditch building managed by GCP Student, after the two companies agreed to end a lease which was originally set to run until 2030.
And Coventry airport is positioning itself to become the home of a 4.5m sq ft gigafactory(£) and automotive hub.
Vodafone has beefed up its mobile phone tower portfolio(£) as it prepares to spin-off the €20bn business.
Homes England and United Trust Bank have unveiled a £250m Housing Accelerator fund, which will loan between £1m and £10m to small and medium residential developers.
Meanwhile close to half a million families have been fallen behind on rents or mortgage payments(£) because of the coronavirus.
Mitchells & Butlers(£) has raised £350m from its three largest shareholders, after the ‘Sandy Lane set’ consolidated their 55% holdings…
… As Wetherspoons boss Tim Martin(£) calls for pubs to be allowed to fully reopen at the same time as non-essential retailers.
But the PM has said that the government is taking a “cautious”(£) approach to easing the lockdown.
Russia’s answer to a pound shop(£) plans to raise considerably more than 100 roubles from a float in London.
Residents of Kendal are opposing a £76m flood defence scheme(£), saying it will cause more damage than recent floods, which it would fail to prevent anyway.
A seven-year divorce battle between an aristocrat and his wife has now acquired a planning dimension(£) involving Sir Tom Hunter.
And not everyone is impressed by plans for a rail tunnel across the Irish Sea. “Put the hallucinogenics down,” one Tory MP has tweeted, before launching into an equally trippy extended Doctor Doolittle analogy.
A young woman battling her mother for a share of her grandmother’s estate(£) should be aware that it could have been a lot worse. The whole lot could have been left to the dog(£).
And finally, Brookfield is understandably proud of the fact that it has managed to get three-quarters of staff back to its Manhattan HQ. So much so that it is sharing its “playbook”(£) with other businesses. Considering the its model is essentially a reminder to clean, test and self-isolate at the first sign of symptoms, calling it a playbook seems a little grand. It’s almost as though the Canadian investment group, which owns over $200bn of commercial real estate, has some vested interest in getting people back to their desks.
