Good morning. Here is your AM bulletin, packed to the gunwales with news and views from EG, plus a little extra from the daily newspapers.
Today’s must-read piece is our interview with P-Three consultant and former intu chair John Strachan. He sits down with EG this week to tell the inside story of the retail property giant’s fall from FTSE 100 to total collapse, and what he believes the lessons are. “I am never going to chair a big public company again.”
And, talking of heavily debt-laden companies, EG Group (no relation) has been allowed to delay a £3.4bn debt repayment.
Meanwhile, The Guardian takes a look at the financial collapse of Woking Borough Council under a £2bn mountain of property debt and asks: “What were they smoking in Woking?”
The number of new homes being granted planning permission has fallen to its lowest level since the 2008 financial crisis.
But Capital & Centric is helping out, submitting plans to redevelop the Cannon Brewery site in Sheffield’s Neepsend as a 500-home mixed-use scheme.
Google is toughening up its stance on WFH, saying the amount of time staff spend in the office will be taken into account when evaluating their performance. Back to your desks, kids!
But Regional REIT says the working from home trend is fading anyway, with workers in its portfolio spending an average of of 4.2 days in the office. Presumably they all knock off early on Friday?
In a small, but thematically important deal, Swiss Life has made its debut in the UK healthcare sector with the purchase of a care home in Surrey.
And we should all be embracing later living communities, writes Untold Living’s Amy Herbert. For one thing, we are all getting older. But not only will it provide more suitable accomodation for our ageing population, it will unlock 2m much-needed rooms.
Meanwhile, CBRE’s head of global brand Sarah Wyse writes about her personal experiences as a carer to mark Carers Week.
Bridges Fund Management has teamed up with Graftongate to buy a six-acre site near Southampton, with plans to develop one of the UK’s greenest sheds.
And plans for the £20m refurbishment of the historic George Hotel in Huddersfield have been given the go-ahead by Kirklees Council.
Palantir Technologies has picked London for its artificial intelligence research HQ.
As the Cabinet Office announces that more civil servants are to be relocated out of London, a new report says the policy does little to help levelling up.
And finally, France claims it is winning in the race to lure bankers from London, partly thanks to the popularity of Emily in Paris.
