Rising Rents Boost Valuations For London West End Landlord
Updated on
Save
Rising rents across London's tourist heartlands pushed up the value of Shaftesbury Capital Plc 's portfolio.
The landlord, which owns swathes of Covent Garden, Soho, China Town and Carnaby Street, reported values that rose 3.1% to £5.2 billion ($6.9 billion) in the six months through June, according to a statement Tuesday. That was driven by a 2.9% increase in its estimated rental values, it said. Earnings rose by 16% to 2.2 pence a share.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
19 minutes ago
- Yahoo
UK transport secretary demands answers from air traffic control chief after flight disruption
LONDON (AP) — Britain's transport chief has summoned the head of the country's air traffic control operator to explain the problem that grounded and diverted dozens of flights Wednesday. More than 150 flights were cancelled across the U.K. as a result of what the National Air Traffic Service, or NATS, described as a 'technical issue' at the Swanwick control center that forced it to limit the number of aircraft in the London area. The problem was reported at 4:05 p.m Wednesday and the system was fully operational by 5:10 p.m., NATS said. Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander will meet with NATS Chief Executive Martin Rolfe on Thursday to 'understand what happened and how we can prevent reoccurrence.'' 'The transport secretary is summoning in today the chief executive of of NATS to help us get to the bottom of what went wrong yesterday,'' Business Minister Gareth Thomas told Times Radio. 'Clearly, an incident happened two years ago and measures were taken then. It looks like those measures weren't enough, but we need to get to the bottom of what exactly happened, and conversations will take place today.' Among those hit was British Airways, which said the problem forced the carrier to reduce the rate of flights from 45 to 32 per hour for more than two hours. While airlines expressed frustration over flight disruptions, industry experts said it was 'unrealistic' to expect an air traffic management system could function without any technical failures. 'There are technical failures in all industries,' Graham Lake, a former director general of the air traffic management industry association Canso, told the BBC. 'I'm a regular rail user, certainly there are signal failures practically every day, so we accept technical failures. Radio programs go off the air occasionally, technical failures are inevitable. The point is that you have to … plan the contingency and make sure that the operation remains safe and effective.'' The NATS system has suffered several software-related failures since it opened in 2002. A glitch in August 2023 resulted in flight plans being processed manually rather than automatically. Hundreds of flights were delayed or canceled at the height of the summer holidays, affecting some 700,000 passengers. The Associated Press Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
19 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Shell net profit retreats on lower energy prices
British energy giant Shell on Thursday said its net profit slid 23 percent in the first six months of the year, hit by lower oil and gas prices. Profit after tax dropped to $8.4 billion compared with $10.9 billion in the first half of 2024, Shell said in an earnings statement. Group revenue dropped nearly nine percent to $136.6 billion in the reporting period. Shell pointed to "lower realised liquids and gas prices", while chief executive Wael Sawan said the company had been operating "in a less favourable macro environment". Energy prices have come under pressure in recent months on concerns that US President Donald Trump's tariffs will hurt economic growth, while OPEC+ nations have produced more oil. "Against a backdrop of geopolitical and economic uncertainty we saw knock-on effects on both physical trade flows as well as commodity prices and margins more broadly," Sawan added. "In spite of this, we delivered a robust set of results, with strong operational performance." Shell's adjusted earnings beat market expectations, helping to lift its share price by 2.5 percent in early London trade. Its stock won additional support from Shell's latest dividend payment and news that it plans to repurchase $3.5 billion of shares. "Shell's diversity of operations across oil, gas, chemicals, and retailing regularly allows one area of strength to counter another of weakness," Keith Bowman, equities analyst at Interactive Investor, said following the results update. However he cautioned that "heightened geopolitical tensions and potential for operational disruption remain an investor concern". Shell in March announced plans to slash costs by billions of dollars and increase shareholder returns, as it focuses on its liquified natural gas (LNG) business. Shell aims to reduce costs by between $5 billion to $7 billion by 2028, compared with 2022 levels. Savings to date stand at $3.9 billion, Sawan noted Thursday. Shell's previous target had been for savings of between $2 billion and $3 billion by the end of 2025, which involved hundreds of job cuts across its oil and gas division. Gas is being touted by energy companies as cleaner than other fossil fuels as countries around the world strive to reduce their emissions and slow global warming. Earlier this year, Shell's British rival BP launched a major pivot back to its oil and gas business, shelving its once industry-leading ambitious renewable energy strategy. BP publishes its latest earnings on Tuesday. bcp/ajb/rl
Yahoo
19 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Investors face global market reset as negative US bets crumble
By Naomi Rovnick LONDON (Reuters) -Investors' conviction that U.S. President Donald Trump's tariffs and debt spree would spark long-term pain for the dollar and U.S. stocks is crumbling, signaling pain ahead for assets across Europe and emerging markets that were boosted by this view. The dollar is heading for its first monthly gain this year, boosted by robust economic data, fading concern about the outlook for U.S. assets and a growing belief that the Federal Reserve may not cut interest rates again for some time. With artificial intelligence euphoria powering U.S. stock markets to consecutive daily peaks and relentless selling of the greenback going into reverse, European equity outperformance has stalled as the euro slides and a blistering gold rally stalls. "It's one of the biggest positions people have, being negative on the dollar and the U.S.," Pictet Asset Management co-head of multi-asset Shaniel Ramjee said. He was preparing to raise his dollar exposure from what he described as "practically zero", on expectations that U.S. economic trends and company earnings would start outshining Europe. A broad dollar revival, he added, might bring 2025's big market trends to a halt. The so-called "rest of the world trade", where investors have favoured international assets over the U.S., was led by a rush of speculative bets against the U.S. currency that has now slowed, Barclays analysis showed. COMEBACK European stocks, which posted their best-ever quarter relative to the U.S. in the three months to March, are now merely keeping pace with Wall Street's S&P 500 as both indices clock an approximately 8.4% year-to-date rise. As recently as mid-July, conviction that the dollar would weaken was the most crowded trade among global fund managers, Bank of America research showed. But currency traders who were making short-term bets against the greenback, which this year suffered its worst first-half slump since 1973, are now backing out. The dollar index is trading at two-month highs and is set for a 3% rise in July, the first monthly increase this year. The euro, which scored the best six-month run of its 26-year lifetime in the half-year to June, has fallen below $1.15, heading for its largest monthly drop since May 2023.. "We're seeing a rotation into U.S. equities, a rotation in currency markets and a rotation in (market) momentum," Edmond de Rothschild Asset Management multi-asset head Michael Nizard said. He cited Sunday's framework trade deal between Washington and Brussels as a major reason for the trend, which he did not expect to last until the end of the year, adding that he would buy the euro at around $1.14. TEMPORARY? Monica Defend, head of the investment institute at Europe's largest asset manager Amundi, said she was sticking to a long-term view that the dollar was set to decline because of Trump's borrowing plans and consistent attacks on Federal Reserve independence. But she said she was also prepared to change her view "if growth in the U.S. surprises nicely on the upside," in a persistent trend from here. Sterling has fallen 1.4% against the greenback this week and an index of emerging market equities has drooped for three days as a stunning year-to-date rally stalls. Gold, the standout trade of 2025, is heading for its first three-week losing streak since November, trading around $3,300 an ounce. Amundi's Defend expected U.S. tech stocks and AI exuberance to keep Wall Street equities outperforming from here. But she also expected U.S. growth to stall once tariffs started raising consumer prices. "The U.S. might continue to be exceptional, probably not on the macro (economic) front, but more on the equity market," she said. Nutshell Asset Management CIO Mark Ellis, whose UK-based fund changes the composition of its portfolios around twice a month, said he was not certain the U.S. market bounce-back could last beyond next week. For 50 years, August and September have been the S&P's worst months for returns compared to volatility, he said. "Around the end of this week is a good time to take risk off and I'll be more defensive going into historical summer volatility and weakness," he said. Barclays head of European equity strategy Emmanuel Cau, in a July 30 note to clients, issued a different warning. He noted that trend-following hedge funds called CTAs, whose trades are viewed as a barometer of the dominant market mood, had closed out bets against U.S. Treasuries and cut exposure to European stocks. A more persistent dollar bounce-back, he said, would be "a key pain trade" for global investors from here. Sign in to access your portfolio
