Hackgate has so dominated the news agenda over the past fortnight that the nation seems to be suffering from a mass, collective distraction.
You know things are bad when an e-mail lands from the IT department – I’m sure it wasn’t just at EG Towers – urging the business to stop streaming an online video.
In this case, it was the Murdochs’ appearance in the Commons on Tuesday. The reason given was the strain on corporate networks. They could easily have said it was because of the threat to productivity.
We’ve had good weeks to bury bad news before; rare are the weeks where all other news gets buried whatever its potential significance.
So in news you may have missed this week, ministers announced that NHS services costing about £1bn are to be opened up to competition.
The minutes of the last Monetary Policy Committee meeting revealed that members are growing gloomier, not cheerier, about domestic economic prospects. And the eurozone teetered closer to Armageddon. The consequences of those last two are profound.
And all the while, we were facing the other way.
The real danger is that we will continue to be distracted. Hackgate will run and run. And while most businesses return to normal activity, there is a danger that Westminster and Whitehall will not do so for many months to come.
What that means for important reforms on planning, the promise of tax-increment financing, a recalibration of the public-sector estate and, most importantly of all, measures to drive economic growth, is hard to say.
But without wishing to downplay the seriousness of all that has been revealed over the past fortnight, the ongoing attention these events are attracting in the corridors of power doesn’t feel like good news for the wider economy on whose fortunes this industry – and others – depend.
DTZ has delayed the payment of staff bonuses. Normally paid in July, they will now be paid in October (p28). If there is a comfort for staff, it’s that the deferment is not confined to the UK. If there is reason to be accepting, it’s the fact that the firm made a £3.4m pretax loss for the year to 30 April. And if there are grounds for optimism, it’s that a frustratingly uncertain period could be about to come to an end.
DTZ’s 55% shareholder, the French property group SGP, is thought to have completed due diligence on its proposed takeover and is expected to show its hand by next week. That move is expected to flush others out of the woodwork. August is traditionally when France takes its holidays. Not so the other interested parties – Australian services giant UGL, BCG Partners of the US and international property advisor network NAI Global. It should be an interesting month.
The long-awaited disposal of distressed assets in the UK appears to be gathering pace. Lambert Smith Hampton’s UK Investment Transactions report shows £6.6bn worth of investment transactions in the second quarter of this year. Some £1bn of that total was distressed. LSH sees an uptick in those transactions. And, like many others in this market, the firm expects it to grow. Indeed for many developers – and non-traditional property companies too – that expectation has hardened into a business plan. It’s a space that even the likes of Grosvenor is moving into.
Interestingly, of the distressed assets sold in the last quarter, more than half were located in the regions. Look at the overall number, however, and deals in London accounted for 90% of the total in terms of the value of the properties sold.
That tells its own story about the state of the nation.
