The Dame's City Slicker reports some bad news for Earls Court rapists, Capco.
Could this be the end of the road for boss, Gary Yardley?
The boys from Jo'burg don't forgive failure....
Yesterday, Capco announced their y/e 31st December to the Stock Exchange. They made a loss last year of £119m compared to a profit of £431m the year before
Could this be the end of the road for boss, Gary Yardley?
The boys from Jo'burg don't forgive failure....
GARY SWEATING..... BUT NOT THE ASSETS |
says Judith Evans in the Financial Times. LINK and according to Bloomberg say LINK the value of the Earls Court Masterplan will need to be written down by 20%.
Dame, couldn't happen to nicer demolishers.
ReplyDeleteTheir finance officer jumped ship last year, did he know something we didn't?
If the then English Heritage now Historic England did its job & the then Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport JEREMY HUNT didn't give Earls Court a certificate of immunity maybe Earls Court would not be such a ghost town.
Go down to Lillie Road in the badlands of Fulham you can see the shops boarded up by CapCo.
Sajid Javid has also given Empress place a ceritificate of immunity from listing. More British & London heritage to be gone forever.
Deletehttp://tinyurl.com/z2ttnw2
Dame, What is CapCo's relationship with the Conservative party?
Capco is responsible for the business rates lists. They're riddled with errors.
ReplyDeleteBearing in mind Capco's recent history, it would be delightful if Earl's Ct sank this particular ship.
The property company Capital & Counties revealed that its large-scale development site at Earl's Court had shed a fifth of its value in a year thanks to “adverse conditions in the London residential market”.
ReplyDeleteThe more than 70 acre site was valued at £1.1bn at the end of 2016, down 20 per cent from its £1.4bn valuation a year earlier. The drop is one of the largest recorded in the current downturn for high-end property in the UK capital; on average, prices for prime central London development land fell 11.5% in 2016, according to Knight Frank, the property agents.
The land value decline pushed the £2.5bn group, which also owns a large area of Covent Garden, to a £119m loss for the calendar year, down from profits of £431m a year earlier, it said in final results released on Wednesday.
Capco is negotiating with the Greater London Authority to make changes to its master plan for Earl’s Court. These would increase the density of housing, building 10,000 rather than 7,500 homes and adding tenures such as private rented homes and shared ownership.
£119m loss for the calendar year, down from profits of £431m a year earlier The previous plan had focused on high-end homes for sale, a market that has slumped over the past 18 months, partly thanks to stamp duty changes and the vote to leave the EU.
This is very interesting for Nottinghill Gate.
ReplyDeleteAt the Newcombe Tower Appeal last week the developer gave a strong "take it or leave it" message to the Government Inspector. If the size of the Tower is reduced the numbers do not work and they will walk away and sell the site. A secondary developer will make a distress purchase and "the eyesore will stay in place".
The Hornton Street busy bodies with their grand area plans, and the Nottinghill Gate Improvement Trust (bored pensioners) have spun their web with mutterings and endless reports about the need for "grand architecture". All this nonsense created the environment for greedy developers who have worked the system and made a "take it or leave it" offer of a skyscraper for buy to leave. They are not interested in compromise or a balanced approach.
Society, community and local economics never got a look in. Our Council leadership is seriously adrift.
The Inspector's decision is expected in a couple of months time. He gave a strong suggestion that in the absence of alternative numbers to challenge the developer's financial assumptions, or an alternative plan, he will approve the project.
The Hillgate Village Residents Association made an impressive series of presentations objecting to the proposal. But it all sounded rather like a Hornton Street Planning Committee with the decision taken before the meeting.......
Hillgate Resident makes a good point. The Council's framework plans and policies are creating a large number of buy to leave developments (Earls Court, Nottinghill, Lancer Square, Odeon, Queen Elizabeth, Charles House, Holland Park playground, Commonwealth Institute, etc etc etc) which will destroy the local economy. Short term profit initiatives that have long term implications need careful policy management to make sure that there is a balanced approach.
DeleteThe development entrepreneurs do what they are allowed to do in order to make money. It is not their job to make society judgements. This is the work of Government. The Tory free market approach needs to be moderated in order to avoid excess and abuse.
... Pembroke Road, Balfour Burleigh and Treverton, Edenham Way, Silchester Estate - the list goes on and on.
DeleteNot so rosy for Yardley's mob at Earl's Court? Wonder if the Jo'burg Squad will make an exhibition of him?
ReplyDeleteanother project that stinks...
ReplyDeleteWornington Green . . . how will the Masterplan for that monstrous Catalyst mess now pan out?
ReplyDeleteWhen elderly people are forcibly moved they tend to die. In RBKC terms that's very positive, freeing up units for more units to move into, if poverty units must exist at all.
If anyone at Capco had an ounce of long term business sense they would recognise that London has too many luxury and expensive flats . What they should do is sit down and rethink the whole thing.Allow the police to stay in Empress state building , on the old site of Earls Court 1 build a new exhibition centre which everyone would welcome and on the old site of earls Court 2 build their flats. This would please everyone, residents and exhibitors included . Capco would get more community support and would not be left with negative reports and flats they are unable to sell.
ReplyDeleteAnd I forgot to say that the estates should be left alone
DeleteIt is bad enough that the 1937 exhibition centre was demoilished Health and Safety not being abided by CapCo and Keltbray.
DeleteThen to target West Ken Estates are homes which parochial CapCo cannot understand the taxpayer will be left footing the bill to relocate the local residents and then rebuild more homes which were already in use. This was down to Conservative councillor Botterill and the rest of LBHF council bending over for CapCo.
There has been no public support for this private project which has been on the cards since 2006 (unknown to residents) with the Conservative party spearheading this with Boris Johnson, Malcolm Rifkind, Victoria Borwick, Jeremy Hunt and Eric Pickles who have been ALL complicit with this private venture which had destroyed an area for the benefit of a private South African billionaire Donny Gordon.
How much public money has been used by CapCo? We do not know but it is in the millions and heads must roll!
Greg Hands has been an avid supporter and shown solidarity with CapCo; Just look at his twitter:
Deletehttps://twitter.com/GregHands/status/677811728294551553
"Good to get an update from CapCo today on the substantial Earls Court redevelopment. We need these new homes."
He failed to mention these shoebox "new homes" were over £100,000 and no social housing and that they were targeted at foreign buyers.
When have conservative councillors and MPs been so at odds with their own voters and supporters refusing to listen or take heed.
From Alasdair Pal Reuters Journalist on CapCo:
ReplyDeleteSome thoughts on the stagnation of the Earls Court master plan Capital & Counties have written down the value of the site by 14%, but what's perhaps even more concerning is the underlying sales
From Feb-May, Capco sold 9 units on what is supposed to be a 7,500 unit site.
From May-July, they sold just 4, all after the EU referendum (foreign buyers attracted by weak £?)
There are signs capital growth is stalling: in May they said phase 2 prices were 4% ahead of phase 1 - now that figure is 4%. What that means is that investors who were looking for growth may put their phase 1 units back on the markets, hampering phase 2 sales
There's now tonnes of supply on Rightmove marked "URGENT SALE!!"
Rise in Capco short sellers is interesting because the opposite has been happening in London-centric Berkeley Group. SocGen on Capco's Earls Court site: discounts look inevitable!
Investors are flipping properties in Earls Court before they're complete, cannibalising sales and dampening prices.