Good morning, and welcome to the second half of 2021.
The first half has certainly been eventful for the hotel sector, with investors completing or nearing completion on £1.7bn of deals. Private equity investors have been targeting cut-price bargains in the wake of the pandemic. Deals being finalised in the next few weeks include Aroundtown’s Hilton portfolio and the £50m ground lease for the Blackfriars Crowne Plaza.
That isn’t the only sector where private equity has been splashing the cash in H1, breaking records by notching up a global total of $500bn of deals(£).
Gap(£) has said it will close all of its 81 UK and Ireland stores – 23 by the end of the month, and the rest by the end of September.
The value of the Cadogan Estate(£) has fallen by almost £800m in a year, but boss Hugh Seaborn is optimistic.
Urban Logistics’ shares closed 4% down yesterday, after it announced plans for a £108m share placing.
And today we announce the shortlist for the EG Awards 2021.
For the first year ever, ESG trumped financials. All those potential winners were weighed not just on how they traded, but on how they tackled their carbon footprint, valued their people, delivered diversity and made a difference, writes EG’s editor.
Outgoing – in more ways than one – Bank of England chief economist Andy Haldane(£) has warned that inflation will rise(£) to 4% by the end of this year.
The UK has secured an exemption for the City(£) from new global rules on taxing multinationals(£) following some intense negotiations in Paris.
Barclays will abandon its 5 North Colonnade(£) office in Canary Wharf, moving thousands of staff to its headquarters at the nearby One Churchill Place. Now it just needs to find a sub-tenant.
Apple(£), meanwhile, is refusing to allow employees to stay away from the office, despite a staff backlash.
Thousands of house sales could fall through(£) as the stamp duty holiday(£) tapers to an end.
The Trump Organization’s chief financial officer has been charged in the first strike by New York prosecutors.
And the man who put Chris Whitty in a headlock for the sake of a selfie has been sacked from his job as an estate agent.
And finally, billionaires buying private islands is nothing new. Nor is turning the untamed wilderness into a building site to “get away from it all”. And that was what was planned for the Saturnina and West Ballinas islands off the Canadian coast near Vancouver. That is until Chip Wilson, the founder of yoga clothing brand Lululemon, snapped them up. What is surprising is that he has no intention of cutting down the Douglas firs to build a posh log cabin. Instead, he has given them to charity with the express intention of preventing any other billionaire from ever building a house there.
