Pensions insurer Rothesay joins suitors for O2 ground rent deal
Britain's biggest pensions insurance specialist has joined the race to buy the 999-year lease of the O2, London's best-known entertainment venue.
Sky News has learnt that Rothesay, which has more than £70bn of assets under management, is among the bidders for the long-term income stream generated by the arena in North Greenwich.
Rothesay and the Universities Superannuation Scheme - along with a small number of undisclosed bidders - are participating in an auction being run by Eastdil, the real estate-focused investment bank.
None of the parties has secured exclusivity, although insiders suggested such a development was unlikely to be far away.
Money blog: Millions of Nationwide customers to receive £100
Rothesay has become one of Britain's most successful specialist insurers, having been established in 2007.
It now protects the pensions of more than 1m people in Briton and makes more than £300m in pension payouts every month.
The auction of the O2's ground rent has been under way for several months, with Sky News having revealed by Cambridge University's wealthiest college.
Trinity College, which ranks among Britain's biggest landowners, acquired the site in 2009 for a reported £24m.
The O2, which shrugged off its "white elephant" status in the aftermath of its disastrous debut as the Millennium Dome in 2000, has since become one of the world's leading entertainment venues.
Operated by Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG), it has played host to a wide array of music, theatrical and sporting events over nearly a quarter of a century.
Trinity College, which was founded by Henry VIII in 1546, bought the O2 lease from Lend Lease and Quintain, the property companies which had taken control of the Millennium Dome site in 2002 for nothing.
A spokesman for Rothesay declined to comment.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
New York Times
an hour ago
- New York Times
Crystal Palace Transfer DealSheet: Summer window latest, key targets and likely exits
Crystal Palace will enter the summer looking to prepare and build a squad for the Europa League next season and seeking to atone for errors made this year. Manager Oliver Glasner repeatedly referenced the late arrival of players, both returning from international competitions but also transfers, as a factor behind the club's worst start to a Premier League season, before it was turned round into an FA Cup-winning campaign in which they achieved their highest Premier League points total. Advertisement He will look to have additions earlier than last year and Palace will have to improve their strength in depth to account for the extra fixtures. They have several key players who will likely be in demand and decisions will have to made on whether to sell and how much they can realistically expect to command for those talents. Those decisions will heavily influence what happens this summer. This is up in the air after the departure of former sporting director Dougie Freedman in March, with Palace having considered replacements and a possible restructuring of their recruitment department. Chairman Steve Parish will be at the head of decisions, setting the budget and having the final call on the strategy. Freedman's assistant, Ben Stevens, who has been with the club since 2015 — originally as head of performance analysis before stepping up alongside Freedman last July — has stepped in to partly fill the void. Iain Moody, who has worked as a consultant at the club for several years and who worked closely alongside Freedman, albeit more in the negotiation process for new and existing players rather than identifying new talent, will also provide some sense of consistency. Freedman built a team working behind him that remains in place and will continue. Freedman will inevitably be consulted to some extent as well, despite his new role in Saudi Arabia. This depends on outgoings. The initial plan is to sign a goalkeeper as back-up to Dean Henderson. There has been a desperate need to sign another left wing-back to provide cover and competition for Tyrick Mitchell. There is no obvious cover for the 25-year-old. Should Marc Guehi, who has only a year left on his contract, leave this summer, Palace will look to sign two centre-backs. Chadi Riad, originally seen as a possible successor, should return in the early part of the season from rupturing his ACL. Advertisement Regardless of whether Eberechi Eze is sold, they will look to bring in another No 10, with Matheus Franca having struggled to make an impact and Romain Esse inexperienced. They could add a second No 10 if a club meets Eze's release clause, but they will also target a centre-midfielder. Cheick Doucoure is expected to be available for pre-season after his meniscus injury, and adding another midfielder would provide Palace with cover and depth. There is hope Jean-Philippe Mateta will stay, given he has two years remaining on his contract, but if he does depart another striker would be a necessity, with only Eddie Nketiah available. Glasner's preference is for players who can come in and make an impact quickly, or adapt with relative ease over a short period of time. He pushed last summer for the signings of Maxence Lacroix and Daichi Kamada, both of whom he had worked with at Wolfsburg and Eintracht Frankfurt, respectively. Glasner wants a squad that is quick to acclimatise to each other and to the hefty physical demands of his system. That does not automatically discount young players, and he is not against promoting youth — Justin Devenny's progress this season is testament to that, even if he was a player bought from Scottish side Airdrieonians — but his priority is for more experienced players. Palace are primarily looking for younger players who have the potential to improve but already have some experience. Southampton midfielder Mateus Fernandes would fit that profile, having been linked with Palace. The Chelsea midfielder Andrey Santos has also been mentioned and, at 21 with almost 100 professional appearances, would suit Palace. But that would be a difficult deal to do with Chelsea keen to keep him having impressed on loan with Strasbourg. They are targeting centre-backs in Italy and Spain, while they have built excellent contacts in France. Odsonne Edouard has failed to make any impact on loan with Leicester City and is not seen as a player who can make a significant contribution. He will move on if they can find a suitor who is prepared to meet the striker's wage demands. He has only a year remaining so would not command a high fee. The 23-year-old midfielder Naouirou Ahamada is not in the club's long-term plans. A rare tick in the miss column for Freedman, Ahamada was loaned to Ligue 1 side Rennes and played only six times. Advertisement Forward Jesurun Rak-Sakyi, 22, scored seven times across 37 appearances on loan with Sheffield United this season, but is not viewed by Glasner as a player who could be a core part of his squad. They originally sought a fee around the £20million that Ipswich Town paid Chelsea for Omari Hutchinson, but that seems a stretch. They could sell Guehi if he continues to show no inclination to sign a new deal. Given the rigours of seven extra games next season, it seems unlikely anyone will be loaned out. Devenny might have been a possibility, but he has done well enough to be kept as part of the first-team squad. Palace might have looked to loan out Franca to ensure sufficient minutes, but he too may now be required in the first team given their extended campaign. Some of the Under-21 side will be loaned out. Hindolo Mustapha has interest, as does Asher Agbinone, who spent time with Gillingham this season. There have been conversations with clubs and the background work has been ongoing for months, but nothing is imminent. It is likely the bulk of their transfer activity will come in the middle to end part of the main transfer window. Parish, however, told reporters after the FA Cup semi-final win over Aston Villa that they would try to 'have a better pre-season (and) not make some of the mistakes we made again'. While he did not explicitly reference the four deadline day arrivals as a mistake, it is a reasonable deduction to make given how much it affected their preparations. Palace have no concerns over their PSR position and their budget will be sufficient to strengthen. If they can offload fringe players, it will be boosted further, while if any of their key players leave it will be for a hefty fee, allowing them to reinvest that money. (Top photos: Getty Images)
CNET
4 hours ago
- CNET
Death to Gmail? Google DeepMind CEO Wants AI to Solve This One Annoying Problem
Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis might have won a Nobel Prize for his work on AlphaFold 2, an AI model that can predict protein structures, but the solution to the problem he really wants to solve still evades him. The problem in question is infinitely easier to grasp and more relatable than Hassabis' work in the field of chemistry. "The thing I really want that we're working on is next-generation email," he said, speaking at SXSW London on Monday. "I would love to get rid of my email." Based on the crowd reaction, it was a popular sentiment in the room, where earlier that day, the former British Prime Minister Tony Blair admitted to sending only one email for the entire 10-year period he was in office. There is some irony to Hassabis' quest. The prize-winning scientist is responsible for developing some of the most complex and sophisticated AI models the world has ever seen, all in aid of working toward cures for diseases that are beyond anything we have access to today. His mission to render email (presumably Gmail?) – an annoyance of our own human invention – obsolete feels like small fry in comparison. But it also exposes the duality of Hassabis' responsibilities at Google. He is, and always has been, deeply committed to pursuing AI for the benefit of humankind. "My personal passion is applying [AI] to the frontiers of science and medicine," he said. At the same time he is beholden to the corporate interests of Google, which acquired DeepMind in 2014. Hassabis always imagined the development of AI to be more of a "scientific-led endeavor," spearheaded by a computer science equivalent to CERN, the famed particle physics lab in Switzerland. But the technology went a different way, becoming commercially viable much quicker than he anticipated. From there, he said, "the capitalist engine has done what it does best." Hassabis almost speaks as though he is separate from the "capitalist engine," but of course he is deeply embedded within it. DeepMind being owned by Google means that as well as pursuing his passion project of curing disease with AI – arguably the most noble use of AI – he must split his attention to ensure Google's AI products, from Gemini to Veo and everything else the company announced at I/O last month are up to scratch in a competitive market. In pursuit of AGI The competition is "ferocious" and it's a hefty work schedule for one man, who says he sleeps very little and doesn't expect to until "we get to AGI," or artificial general intelligence. Along with developing DeepMind's core AI models, and translating them into science, he continues to pursue the development of AGI, or AI that fully matches (or exceeds) human intellectual capabilities. "My feeling is that we're about five to 10 years away," he said. His vision for AGI is that it will unlock a world in which "we can cure many, many diseases – or maybe even all diseases," and "unlimited renewable energy." In some ways, the Google products are stopping off points on the way. One of the reasons DeepMind has built Veo 3, its latest video generation software, said Hassabis, is that AGI needs to have a physical understanding of the world around it. The world models built for Veo 3 are key to this understanding. In turn, these world models will be essential for a breakthrough in robotics, which Hassabis believes is due in the "next few years." While it's sometimes not clear where DeepMind's worthy mission ends and Google's commercial priorities kick in, it's clear that Hassabis is finding ways to make it work for him, and his long-term pursuit of an AGI breakthrough. In spite of the seismic shift he predicts this will cause, even he is skeptical of the hype around AI in the short term. "I mean, it couldn't be any more hyped," he said. "Therefore, it is a little bit overhyped."
Yahoo
5 hours ago
- Yahoo
Rachel Reeves threatens Roman Abramovich over frozen £2.35bn Chelsea sale funds
Rachel Reeves is preparing to haul Roman Abramovich to court to finally break the three-year deadlock around the frozen £2.35 billion Chelsea sale fund. In a dramatic hardening of the UK's position, the Chancellor is taking a personal lead in attempting to force the fund's release for Ukraine aid. The fund has remained in limbo as Abramovich remains at loggerheads with ministers over how it is spent on war victims. The Labour Government has been holding the same line as the previous Tory administration in insisting the huge sum is spent only on Ukraine. As talks continue to stall, Reeves and David Lammy, the Foreign Secretary, have now resorted to threatening court action. 'We are deeply frustrated that it has not been possible to reach agreement on this with Mr Abramovich so far,' a statement from the pair read. Senior ministers have been debating for years how best to deal with Abramovich, who has maintained throughout that his initial agreement with the Government was to release the fund for 'all victims' of the war. The possibility of action via the courts was previously toyed with by the Conservative government, sources close to talks say. With Labour making no progress since coming to power, however, Reeves is understood to have played a key role in pursuing a new tougher on-the-record position. 'The Government is determined to see the proceeds from the sale of Chelsea Football Club reach humanitarian causes in Ukraine, following Russia's illegal full-scale invasion,' the new statement said, before later adding: 'While the door for negotiations will remain open, we are fully prepared to pursue this through the courts if required, to ensure people suffering in Ukraine can benefit from these proceeds as soon as possible.' No final decision has been made on taking Abramovich through the courts to seize the asset. Such action against the oligarch would inevitably be lengthy and messy. The former Chelsea owner first promised proceeds for 'all Ukraine war victims' after putting the west-London club up for sale on March 2, 2022, eight days before facing action over alleged links to Vladimir Putin, the Russia president. Abramovich is still under UK Government sanction. The proceeds have been frozen in a UK bank account since the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI) issued a licence to permit Abramovich to sell the club. The fund will have generated a significant amount of interest while in the account, potentially taking the total value beyond £2.5 billion. The Foreign Office had repeatedly promised in recent months that the new Government would 'double down' on efforts to reach a solution. Humanitarian charities have grown increasingly desperate for a breakthrough, fearful that discussions will be thrown further into chaos if UK sanction arrangements against Russia were to change. Despite the sale of the club taking place entirely within UK jurisdiction, ministers signed a unilateral declaration in May with the European Commission, stating the money would be spent 'exclusively' within Ukraine. That move bemused the humanitarian sector as Mike Penrose, a former UK chief executive of Unicef, was brought in to create an independent foundation on the basis that it would be spent on 'Ukraine and its consequences'. Penrose has been taking a neutral position in discussions between the Government and Abramovich's lawyers. He has set up legal undertakings to make sure the money cannot fall back into the hands of the Russian. The Government will have board input and Jan Egeland, a senior Norwegian diplomat who once advised Kofi Annan at the United Nations, was brought in as interim chairman of the foundation. James Deneslow, head of the conflict team at Save the Children, is among leading figures in the sector to call on ministers to release the funds to support the full 'humanitarian consequences of the war in Ukraine'. The difference of opinion on the purposes of the foundation predates the Chelsea sale to a consortium led by American businessman Todd Boehly, which was completed on May 30, 2022. A representative of Abramovich has been contacted by Telegraph Sport for comment. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
