Good morning,
Brookfield(£) is moving ahead with plans to spin-off its asset management arm, readying a 25% stake. The new public company, which some are valuing at $75bn, would be one of the largest Wall Street listings of the year. It would also be the new home of some $40bn of Brookfield’s directly held real estate assets, including its share of Canary Wharf.
Dreaded stagflation(£) is looming in the UK as economic recovery stalls and inflation surges to its highest level in 30 years. The FTSE 100 has slumped(£) as figures for February and March show the worst combination of surging prices and zero growth since the 1970s. They are also starkly at odds with claims of a strong economic bounceback from the coronavirus pandemic made by the prime minister, who is facing renewed calls for an emergency budget.
Residential development land values and delivery rates are both set to come under pressure this year in the face of cooling demand and soaring build costs, says Knight Frank.
As the cost of the average property exceeds £500,000(£) in one in six British neighbourhoods.
But the PM does have a plan. He wants to axe one-in-five civil servants(£). Apparently cutting 90,000-or-so government employees will save £3.5bn a year, bringing Whitehall numbers back to pre-Brexit levels.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump has made a $100m profit(£) on the sale of his landmark Washington hotel.
And finally, forget working from home, why not try working from Venice? The lagoon city has a new plan to wean itself off tourism, by luring digital nomads to its cafes and canals. A new venture, charmingly dubbed ‘Venywhere‘(£), is hooking up remote workers from across the globe with visas, workspaces and flats. Venice expects the expats to stay in the city for one to three months, working, but also enjoying the sites, sounds and smells of La Serenissima. Which kind of makes them tourists, doesn’t it?
