Tick shock
Diary heard this week of an agent who encountered a herd of deer on a weekend country sojourn and caught ticks. Luckily he managed to remove most of them (the trick is to pull them off your skin and get rid of the head – grim, we know) but on Monday morning, to his horror, he discovered a tiny bloodsucking hitchhiker had made it all the way to Savills’ London office attached to his arm. With a swift pinch, it was soon crawling around on a sheet of paper on his desk. He turned around for a split second to tell his team, but when he turned back his parasitic pet was gone. Either it found a new host or is still at large, looking for its next victim.
Not to be sniffed at…
While researching the Mexican market for the upcoming Estates Gazette Global Investor Guide, Diary came across what is hopefully a mistranslation rather than misdemeanour. According to a report on activity in the Mexican capital: “The financial services industry experienced the largest amount of activity, and absorbed the largest amount of Class A during the first half of the year.” We are sure this is nothing nefarious and simply a reference to the surge in US firms investing over the border, although the report does go on to say that this progress is “accelerating momentum” and construction pipelines are now at a record high.
Battle of the Brands
Diary has nothing but respect for Ballymore and EcoWorld’s Embassy Gardens project in Nine Elms, SW8 – Sky Pool and all. But unfortunately our fondness for the scheme does not extend to outright sponsorship, as many have apparently interpreted the site’s branding to mean. Diary has been taking messages all week from sources asking how Ballymore was lucky enough to secure the prestigious endorsement of Estates Gazette. Though with off-plan flats at the site going for as much as £2.8m, don’t expect us to argue if a few cash deposits start landing on the (original) EG doormat.
Charlie Charlie
Charlie Miller is the founding partner and director of CCD Properties, a retail development company based in London. Imagine Diary’s confusion when, searching for his contact details, a retail development company in Canada, also called CCD Properties, cropped up on our search feed. Weirder still, the founding partner and director of the Canadian version is called – you guessed it – Charlie Miller. Separated at birth? A double life? Freaky stuff.
A dish best served cold
As an inveterate watcher of TV’s Masterchef, Diary loves a bit of fine dining (just read last week’s Retail & Leisure supplement). It is also intrigued by the Knight Frank research earlier this year that suggested a Michelin-starred restaurant can boost local house prices by 6%. Pity (or not) the nimby homeowners in Birmingham’s Edgbaston who are now kicking themselves. Word reaches us that they objected to a restaurant without knowing the identity of the chef behind it. Turns out it was local lad Glynn Purnell, whose Michelin-starred Purnells is doing very nicely in the city centre, thank you.
Keep an eye on the competition
Always nice to get one over on your competitors, and what better way than to hit them in their pockets? Chris Philp, co-founder of lender Pluto Capital and the new Conservative MP for Croydon South, has been keeping on top of the bonuses being doled out at Lloyds – campaigning for UK Financial Investments to reduce them following the bank’s £117m fine in June for mishandling complaints relating to PPI. Diary guesses that the Lloyds team may fight that little harder for the deal next time they are tête-à-tête with Pluto.
Cobblers to Carbuncle Cup result
It has won Building Design’s Carbuncle Cup and last week’s Observer said we should just knock the whole thing down. But what do EG readers think of Land Securities’ 20 Fenchurch Street, EC3 – aka the Walkie Talkie? The results of our recent poll are in and while we can’t prove the great and good of the property industry hold the tower up as a beacon of real estate gold, we can reveal that 60% of those surveyed don’t think it is the worst building in the UK. Admittedly, the fact that 34% of you think it is could be is more telling. Who are the other contenders? Let us know:
comment@estatesgazette.com
