December 2008 Archives

The demolitions taking place on these two London properties were far from normal, being demolished literally from the bottom up. But following a recent site visit by one of our researchers they are now nothing more than cleared sites. The completion of the demolitions comes somewhat as a surprise following the poor current economic conditions with many pulling contractors off site until things pick up.
Bottoms upCleared Sites

So if you were planning to rush down to the Leadenhall Building or 20 Fenchurch Street to grab a photo of the floating floors we suggest you think twice. We got there just in time to get a few crackers.

The City has this week given planning permission to another development which gains it name from a food substance. Targetfollows "Can of Ham" scheme has been given the go ahead and is set to provide an interesting addition to the London skyline but has sparked conversation that some on the planning committee are not taking the square mile all that seriously.

The property will be erected alongside other culinary names including the iconic "Gherkin" at 30 St Mary Axe, EC3, and the proposed "Cheesegrater" which saw the tricky bottom up demolition of the former Leadenhall building complete this week.

One committee member was reported to have said that the City was fast becoming "a recipe for a salmon lunch", and called for the names to be dropped.

Shouldn't those involved in City development be more pressed to question such a development in a time when there is already substantial speculative space due to flood the market?

During these difficult times many firms are taking stock of their finances and opting to make the most of their existing work space as opposed to moving to new build office blocks. This alternative often offers a cheaper, less disruptive solution and could inevitably create greater opportunities for office fit out companies.

With a good working environment high on the list of priorities of most tenants maybe we will begin to see a few more offices like these shown below as firms aim to provide a good social and interactive atmosphere, and not just a place of work.

The Red Bull office in London

A novel way to enter the office!!

Modern open spaces to interact

A spot of table tennis to entertain your clients if all is going wrong

The Nike office in London

Not your normal bland office interior

The value of cancelled mergers for this quarter has been rising at an alarming rate and is now almost level with that of completions.

When BHP Billiton withdrew its bid for Rio Tinto last week the value of cancelled merger deals rose to $322 billion, against $362 billion in completed merger and acquisition transactions.

The last time these values were so close was in the first quarter of 1987, but many now fear that this quarter could ultimately prove to be worse and the quarterly rate of withdrawn deals is already at its highest point since 1993.

Expenditure on acquisitions abroad by British firms decreased from £5.5 billion in Q2 to £4.2 billion last quarter.

One of the major transactions to complete was the acquisition by Reed Elsevier Group of Choicepoint for a reported value of £1.8 billion.

Expenditure on acquisitions in the UK by foreign companies went down from £19 billion in Q2 to just £2.9 billion in Q3.

Meanwhile, spending on acquisitions in the UK by UK based companies went down from £9.3 billion in the second quarter of 2008 to £3.9 billion last quarter.