Northern Ireland

Commercial property is riding high with financiers anxious toborrow. Savills reckons property lending is as much as £57m,against the £30bn reckoned by the Bank of England.

West Midland Fire and Civil Defence Authority is putting aformer nuclear war control centre up for sale. The bunker at Sutton Coldfield is expected to fetch about£100,000.

Norwich Union has paid £33.6m for the property interestsof Bentalls. The Kingston-based department store group has exercised a putoption to sell 17% of rental income from the Bentalls Centre.The Centre…

Wedderburn Securities has made an offer for ForspurTrading. Wedderburn is an AIM-listed property investment company while Forspur Trading is an oil-trading and production companyregistered in Cyprus.

Tesco is planning to build a call centre at George Square,Glasgow. It will be open in July. The Times 04/06/97 page 28 (Business Roundup).

The Halifax has released figures showing the housing marketrecovery, with the average price of a home rising by 1% last month, comparedwith April.

MEPC is to invest £470m over the next four years, starting Iwith a £164m tranche in the second half of thisyear.

Wiggins is reported to be taking a close look at CNCProperties with a view to takeover. CNC’s share price rose 5.5p to 76.5p, just below last year’speak.

Stakis has announced plans to build a £12.3m hotel andleisure complex outside Glasgow. It will be built in Strathclyde Business Park and will open inthe summer of 1998.

Directors and senior executives of Morrison Construction and their families are selling up to 13% of the company. They will bereducing their stake from 65.9% to 53%.

The building industry is facing a wave of unofficial disputes.Industrial action could affect projects as diverse as the JubileeLine extension, the Millennium project at Greenwich, the RoyalOpera House renovation and…