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Archive for the ‘Financial sector’ Category
Wednesday, July 20th, 2011
Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint have spent almost £25m on homes in New York, the UK and the Alps
Harry Potter stars Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson have splashed out on homes in New York, the UK and the Alps, investing more than a third of their combined wealth in property.
The three have spent £24.5m of their collective £85m on luxury properties in recent years, according to analysis by property website PrimeLocation.com. But with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II breaking box office records – it raked in $480m worldwide in the opening weekend alone , according to Screen Daily – they could soon have more cash to spend.
Radcliffe, 21, has an £11.2m property portfolio, including three New York addresses. He has a £3.5m penthouse in TriBeCa, overlooking the Hudson river; a £4m townhouse in Greenwich Village, which he is renovating; and a £3m apartment in SoHo’s Mercer Street, which he rents out for £3,000 a week. He also bought a £730,000 flat near his parents’ home in Fulham.
Meanwhile, 22-year-old co-star Grint, aka Ron Weasley, has stayed close to his home village of Watton-at-Stone. He has been building a property portfolio in Hertfordshire, with a £5.4m manor set in 22 acres of grounds, a £3.35m house plus another £495,000 detached property – all mortgage-free.
Watson, also 21, who has boosted her movie earnings as the face of fashion label Burberry, has bought a £1m chalet in the ski resort of Meribel in the French Alps and a £3m townhouse in Hampstead in north London. “If Emma wanted to surround herself with creatives then she couldn’t have picked a better location – Hampstead is awash with luvvies,” said Nicholas Ayre, director of London-based buying agent Home Fusion.
Nick Leach of French property specialists P&V Property Investments said buying in the French Alps was also a safe bet. “The Alps are protected by strict building regulations and with limited supply demand is very healthy. “
Posted in Business, Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Film, Financial sector, Harry Potter, House News, Investing, Money, News, Property, Rupert Grint, The Guardian | Comments Closed
Wednesday, June 15th, 2011
Harry Hill’s venture, In-Deed Online, becomes the first property-linked legal company on the Alternative Investment Market
An online conveyancing service set up by Rightmove founder Harry Hill will become the first property-linked legal company to list on Aim today. In-Deed Online allows people buying or selling a home to track the legal process from instruction to completion. The website was launched by Hill, the former chief of estate agents Countrywide, and Peter Gordon, a former partner at private equity group 3i. Former Nationwide chief executive Philip Williamson and former Wall Street trader Boris Zhilin are non-executive directors.
The firm which has raised £2.9m in a pre-IPO placement is raising £1.6m by selling up to 3.7m shares at 42p to institutional and other investors. The business is set to join Aim with a market value of £8.6m.
Hill and Gordon will keep a stake of 10% each and are locked in to their investment for a number of years. Other investors include Octopus Investments and fund manager Henderson, as well as Andrew Black, the co-founder of Betfair. He invested in the pre-IPO round in May at 42p and owns nearly 3% of the company.
The firm has signed up law firms O’Neill Patient and Breeze and Wyles to do the conveyancing work, which will operate under the In-Deed Online brand, and hopes to sign up another two. Gordon said InDeed might take stakes in these legal firms, providing them with capital to support their expansion so they can handle more cases.
“As far as customer service is concerned, conveyancing is still in the dark ages,” he said. “We’re not setting out to be cheap and cheerful – this is a high-quality service at a very fair price.” A quick quote reveals the website charges £450 in legal costs, plus £90 VAT and £716 in other costs for a freehold purchase of £250,000.
In-Deed’s ambitious goal is to become a market leader in the highly fragmented £1bn conveyancing market within three years. At present, no single firm controls more than 3% of the market. Its service features a price guarantee, a no completion – no fee promise and a team of regional property lawyers who commit to updating homebuyers every two days.
“I’m not very good at being second or third,” said Hill. “Together with a team I built Countrywide from a small estate agency group to the largest of its type in the UK, and developed Rightmove which,valued at upwards of £1bn, is best in class.”
Posted in Business, Financial sector, House News, Housing market, Investing, Law, Money, News, Property, Real estate, Rightmove, The Guardian | Comments Closed
Tuesday, March 22nd, 2011
• FSA’s concession welcomed by Council of Mortgage Lenders
• Plans ‘would have frozen out 2 million potential homebuyers’
The Financial Services Authority has made a key concession to lenders by admitting that its rules on how homebuyers should be assessed for a mortgage may be too stringent.
In its annual business plan, the FSA acknowledged that its proposal that lenders should look at whether a customer can afford a mortgage over a 25-year period “may not be appropriate given the range of individual circumstances”.
The regulator, which has faced intense lobbying from the industry, also stressed that it did not intend to ban interest-only loans.
“The FSA nevertheless remains focused on ensuring that the new regime includes a robust assessment by the lender of the affordability of the loan for the individual, both for interest only and repayment loans,” the regulator said.
The Council of Mortgage Lenders had warned that more than 2 million people would not have been able to take out mortgages if the new rules had been implemented, and had called on the public to write to the FSA, local MPs and ministers to protest against the “flawed and impractical” proposals. The lenders’ lobby group welcomed the move by the FSA on Tuesday.
The business plan for 2011-12 is likely to be one of the last published by the FSA, which will be broken up by the end of 2012 or 2013. It will be turned into the Prudential Regulatory Authority (PRA), to be headed by Hector Sants, the current FSA chief executive. The PRA is expected to cost an estimated £75m-£150m to set up.
A Financial Conduct Authority – with set-up costs estimated at £25m – is also being created and will be run from September by Martin Wheatley, who is at present head of Hong Kong’s financial regulator. Margaret Cole, the FSA’s head of enforcement, will take charge until Wheatley arrives. The FSA will try to operate under this new structure from next month.
A financial policy committee is being set up inside the Bank of England under Mervyn King, the Bank’s governor, to oversee macroeconomic issues and financial stability.
Sants pledged on Tuesday to keep the FSA’s headcount at 4,000 until the break-up of the regulator is completed, after hiring an extra 195 staff last year to help supervise major firms.
“The 2011-12 business year for the FSA will be a difficult one,” Sants said. “We have to ensure that we are operating effectively as a supervisor as well as taking forward the key policy initiatives … All this has to be done at the same time as taking forward the preparations for a new regulatory structure.”
Much of the work will involve implementing more than 20 EU directives.
Posted in Business, Consumer affairs, Financial sector, Financial Services Authority (FSA), House News, Housing market, Money, Mortgages, News, Property, Real estate, Regulators, The Guardian | Comments Closed
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