Good morning, this 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.
2024 could be the year things return to “normal”, but is that necessarily a good thing? Take-up for big sheds returned to “normality” in 2023, totalling 29.1m sq ft across 130 deals, according to the latest data from Savills. Alas, “normality” is 40% below 2022’s bumper, but unsustainable, high.
Meanwhile, the picture for retail is now “less bad”, with a mere 10,000 stores shutting forever in 2023, as opposed to 2022’s 17,000.
And while London saw a return to pre-pandemic levels for new restaurant openings, there have already been a worrying number of closures this year, which experts warn is “the tip of the iceberg”.
But manufacturing could prove to be the silver lining to all this rather grey “normality”. A snapshot survey from Make UK suggests that the sector could soon account for 15% of UK GDP, as opposed to the sub-10% it has wallowed at for a decade, And – good news! – this isn’t because everything else is getting worse, its because of the prospect of genuine growth!
In other news:
Travelodge buys 66 hotels from LXi for £210m
LondonMetric buys Next’s Doncaster shed for £21m
Ex-Hollis directors launch new firm
Non-performing loans soar at big four US banks
Signa administrators seek €350m to avoid fire sale
Mayfair duplex is first ultra-prime sale for 2024
