UK house prices edged down in July to an average of £285,044, marking a fourth consecutive monthly decline, but with the market showing increased activity, according to data from Halifax. The average house price fell 0.3 per cent last month, broadly in line with a 0.2 per cent drop reported last week by rival lender
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HSBC’s head of public affairs has apologised for saying the UK government had been “weak” by giving in to US pressure to cut back on its dealings with China. Sherard Cowper-Coles, a former British ambassador who also chairs the lobby group the China-British Business Council, made the comments at a private event in London in
LSL Property Services, one of the UK’s largest providers of mortgage and valuation services, has warned its full-year profits are likely to be “substantially lower” than previously forecast due to the impact of rising interest rates on the housing market. The company, which owns mortgage adviser network Primis and estate agency Your Move, posted revenue
European stocks fell on Monday as investors struggled to interpret diverging US employment data and prepared for the country’s inflation reading later in the week to gauge the Federal Reserve’s future path for interest rates. Europe’s region-wide Stoxx 600 lost 0.1 per cent at the opening bell after declining 2.4 per cent last week, while
UK investors have reduced their holdings in some of Britain’s leading defence companies since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year, underlining concerns in Westminster that the sector lacks support in the City of London. Fund managers based in the UK have cut their holdings in companies including BAE Systems and Qinetiq by an average of
Private equity firms are increasingly offering sweeteners such as fee discounts to secure backing from deep-pocketed investors, in a sign that the industry is facing its toughest-ever fundraising environment. Blue-chip firms including CVC Capital Partners, Ardian, TPG and Cinven have all in recent months offered investors either a discount on management fees or other incentives
Over the past few weeks, a large-scale rescue operation has been under way off the coast and keys of Florida. It began as water temperatures were rising towards a peak of 38.4C — similar to someone with a high fever — which was recorded on July 24 by a buoy off Manatee Bay. Knowing that
When western policymakers talk about reasons for supply chain decoupling from China in areas like semiconductors and clean energy technology, they often cite two inconvenient truths. First, cheap Chinese inputs like the polysilicon needed for solar panels and critical minerals for batteries are often made or extracted by forced labour in Xinjiang. Second, a lot
Brussels will press Beijing to reduce barriers to European exports at a high-level meeting in September after the EU’s trade deficit with China hit almost €400bn last year. EU trade commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis told the Financial Times that the “staggering” deficit, which has doubled in two years, underscored the need for Beijing to open its
Messages from the archive of Rutherford Hall, critical communications strategist WhatsApp to Stephen: How do you feel about us joining the war on woke capitalism? In general I prefer to stay clear and our client and staff roster would nudge us the other way, but I’ve had an approach from a major hedge fund guy
8/7/2023, 12:49:44 AM What to watch in Asia today William Langley in Hong Kong Pakistan: Popular opposition leader Imran Khan was taken into custody at the weekend following an Islamabad high court’s decision to sentence him to three years in jail on corruption charges. Meanwhile, Pakistani officials approved a plan to redraw the country’s electoral
Europe’s biggest companies have suffered at least €100bn in direct losses from their operations in Russia since President Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year, according to analysis by the Financial Times. A survey of 600 European groups’ annual reports and 2023 financial statements shows that 176 companies have recorded asset impairments, foreign exchange-related charges
China has signalled it is willing to attend further international talks on resolving the conflict in Ukraine, according to European officials who hailed its “constructive” participation in a Saudi Arabian forum that excluded Moscow. The weekend talks in Jeddah, which were attended by dozens of countries and focused on a 10-point peace plan proposed by
The writer is a professor at MIT, where he directs the Senseable City Lab. He is co-author of ‘Atlas of the Senseable City’. Meet your new real estate agent: it’s a bot. Artificial intelligence algorithms can now take one look at a house — by using Google Street View, for example — and predict its
US government scientists have achieved net energy gain in a fusion reaction for the second time, a result that is set to fuel optimism that progress is being made towards the dream of limitless, zero-carbon power. Physicists have since the 1950s sought to harness the fusion reaction that powers the sun, but until December no
The Bank of England is coming under pressure from the finance industry to delay the UK’s adoption of new global banking capital rules by six months to avoid a period of regulatory divergence that would affect the City’s ability to compete with Wall Street. The Prudential Regulation Authority, the central bank’s regulatory arm, last year
At the Goshen Country Fair 34 miles south-west of Philadelphia on Friday night, the dairy cattle show was in full swing, the fried Oreos were selling fast, there was live music and bingo. And Donald Trump was getting little sympathy in his defence against a mounting series of criminal allegations. “As far as I’m concerned,
The Philippines and the US have accused China of illegally targeting two Philippine supply ships in the South China Sea with water cannon, in a further escalation of Beijing’s pressure campaign around a Philippine-occupied shoal in the disputed waters. A Chinese coast guard ship blocked and water cannoned the second of two boats chartered by
Over breakfast in late June at the five-star Hotel Amigo in Brussels, the most powerful leaders of the EU began in earnest their discussions on how to bring Ukraine into the club. The heads of governments of the EU’s 10 largest states by population, including France, Germany, Poland and Romania, chewed over the myriad ways
Thousands of leaseholders in low-rise blocks of flats in England are facing large bills to replace cladding and correct other fire-safety defects after being excluded from legislation that capped the amount residents have to contribute to remedial works six years after the Grenfell fire disaster. Campaign group End Our Cladding Scandal has raised concerns with
It has been 15 months since Italy impounded the Scheherazade, a $700mn superyacht linked to Vladimir Putin. But the time the yacht has spent sitting in the Tuscan port of Marina di Carrara has not been wasted: Italy has allowed its unnamed, but sanctioned, owner to pay not just for its staff and maintenance, but