Good morning. Here 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.
Insurance giant L&G, one of the UK’s largest real estate investors, has seen its half-year profits slide due to a fall in its £1.2tn AUM investment management arm, LGIM, which dropped by 29%. But its alternative asset creator wing, LGC, was 13% up to £296bn.
Rival retailers including B&M, Poundland, The Range and Home Bargains are readying bids for the fallen discounter Wilko. They have until the end of tomorrow to make their offers.
Hans Zimmer, the composer of more than 150 film scores including Pirates of the Caribbean and Gladiator, has bought the BBC’s iconic Maida Vale studios for a reported £10.5m. His consortium plans to turn the north west London studios, which have hosted everyone from Bowie to Beyoncé, into a school for musicians.
CVC Capital Partners has revived plans for a multibillion-euro stack market listing after raising a record €26bn (£22.3bn) buyout fund last month.
And Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway has built up a $814m (£640.4m) investment in three US housebuilders, including a 1.8% stake in DR Horton.
Meanwhile, PfP Capital’s regional private rented sector platform Picture Living is forward-funding two schemes in Essex, developed by Vistry and Dandara.
Two holiday parks owned by Robert Bull – the billionaire bungalow tycoon dubbed “Bob the Builder” – have fallen into administration.
A growing number of landlords have sold up as rates on mortgages surge, according to data from Savills.
The Times (£) has an obituary for housebuilder and pioneer of system-built housing Sir Norman Wakefield.
And it is time to get on your marks for LandAid’s latest events.
And finally, a Cambridgeshire car park that cost £1m of public money to develop has been used by just three vehicles in the week after it opened. The 112-space Manea train station car park was heralded by councillors as “an exciting time for the local community”. Clearly not many others are finding this use of the Cambridgeshire & Peterborough Combined Authority’s cash quite as exciting.
Meanwhile, the morning papers are dominated by the news that the world’s most famous property developer, Donald Trump, has been charged with interference with the 2020 election during his term as the 45th president of the USA. Perhaps he should have stuck to the day job?
