Good morning.
Developer First Base is splitting its team and portfolio. Former boss Barry Jessup will lead the newly-created Socius Development as managing director, taking forward a £1bn pipeline of mixed-use urban regeneration schemes. Chair Elliot Lipton will lead First Base as managing director, focusing on public-private partnerships.
And rumours are whirling over a possible “plan B” to close offices over Christmas to curb the spread of the Omicron variant. But can the office parties go ahead?
Families of the victims of the Grenfell Tower disaster have branded a government apology(£) a “deeply offensive” attempt to “carry on their masquerade of innocence”(£).
Plans for the regeneration of the derelict Broadmarsh shopping centre in Nottingham will leave part of it still looking like a ruin. Developer Stories and urban designer Heatherwick Studio’s plans include 750 homes and 400,000 sq ft of offices, but will retain the frame of the former shopping centre. The Guardian has called the plans “ruin porn”.
Meanwhile, The Times (£) isn’t that impressed by Glasgow’s answer to the Angel of the North. The COP26-inspired Hope Sculpture does look rather like a needy jelly baby balanced on a camera stand. But perhaps that is the point?
Zopa is quitting(£) the peer-to-peer lending market that it once pioneered.
And there is still no sign of a slowdown(£) in the housing market, as prices rose by 1% in November(£). Flats are making a comeback, though, signalling that the “race for space” is over.
The boss of online mortgage lender Better.com, who fired 900 staff over a Zoom call last week, is now reeling from the resignation of three senior executives.
Default is in the stars for Evergrande(£) and Kaisa, as both fail to pay bondholders, again. Meanwhile, the Chinese government is attempting to limit the damage with a raft of new rules(£).
Australia’s richest woman has complained that there are not enough places in Brisbane to park her superyacht, forcing her to spend “rough sleepless nights” at sea(£). Mining and property magnate Gina Rinehart has begged Queensland’s political leaders to build more ports, which she said would “enable standards of living to rise”. Poor thing.
And finally, another day, another former royal demanding their palace back. This time it’s Spain’s former king Juan Carlos. The exiled king is planning a comeback in style after having spent the last six months living in Abu Dhabi in an attempt to avoid the fallout of a major corruption scandal which led to his own son – current king Felipe VI – disowning him. After two years of negotiating, the government appears to be willing to drop all legal proceedings against him, allowing him to return to Spain. Sure, says Juan Carlos, but only if I also get the Zarzuela Palace outside Madrid(£) and a €200,000 annual state stipend. That’s some impressive negotiating! Then again, he was being investigated for multi-million-euro tax evasion and wangling a €65m kickback from Saudi Arabia, so a palace and pocket money is just peanuts, really.
