Good morning.
Traditional asset management groups are racing to expand offerings in alternative investments(£), including real estate, as they seek to boost profitability and head off competition from private equity giants. The competition for talent is heating up as alts investment is expected to rise to $22tn and 16% of AUM by 2025.
Lawyers for Sir Frederick Barclay(£), the former owner of the Ritz, say he is too poor to pay his £100m divorce settlement, survives on handouts from his nephews and has been “evicted” from his flat.
The UK has placed sanctions(£) on a further 65 oligarchs(£) and businesses with links to the Kremlin.
One sanctioned oligarch(£) asks how he will survive – speaking from his £10m St James’s flat.
And Farhad Moshiri, the Everton FC owner under scrutiny for his links to sanctioned oligarch Alisher Usmanov, has been revealed as the main owner of the Royal Liver Building(£).
Meanwhile, US billionaires are behind the leading bids in the £3bn race to purchase Chelsea Football Club(£), as it appears Nick Candy’s consortium will not progress to the next stage.
The government has pledged a tenfold increase in the number of electric car chargers by 2030.
The boss of McColl’s Retail Group(£) has stepped down as the convenience store chain looks to raise funds for its survival.
And a pharmaceutical firm is starting work on a £100m cannabis factory in Kent(£).
A 521ft-high “flower-clad” tower has been proposed for Midtown Manhattan. The 41-storey building will be clad in bulbs, according to a concept by Studio Vural.
Construction crews working on Bill Gates’ $43m San Diego bachelor pad(£) are keeping the neighbours awake.
And Tommy Hilfiger has made a $19m profit after selling his Aspen mansion for $50m, just three months after he bought it.
And finally, people who work from home should pay business rates(£), claims restaurateur David Moore. The owner of the Michelin-starred Pied à Terre is furious that he pays £62,000 in rates a year, while his neighbour – who works from a house on Charlotte Street, W1 – pays just £3,000 in council tax. Moreover, Moore has to pay £1.30 for every bag of rubbish he leaves out, while his pesky neighbour gets his waste removed for nothing. Moore says that if business rates were charged on home offices, people might decide that coming back to the actual office wasn’t so bad after all. And then they would be more likely to book a table at his restaurant and tuck in to a plate of fallow deer and boudin blanc. A neat, if flawed, plan, but it certainly highlights just how broken the current system is.
