UK watchdog launches probe into $13.25 billion Omnicom–Interpublic merger
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Independent
16 minutes ago
- The Independent
Football supporters now have a bigger say in how their clubs are run
The Football Governance Act has officially become UK law after receiving royal assent, establishing an independent regulator for English football. This landmark legislation introduces a watchdog for the top five tiers of the men's game, aiming to ensure clubs are run sustainably and are accountable to their supporters. The new regulator will possess 'backstop' powers to impose financial settlements between the English Football League (EFL) and the Premier League if they fail to reach an agreement. The Act's journey to law was prompted by the attempted European Super League breakaway and numerous instances of clubs facing financial distress and mismanagement. Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy highlighted that the Act delivers on promises to fans, protecting cherished clubs and their vital role in communities.
Daily Mail
17 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
End of Britain's housing boom? Warning issued for sellers
Advertisement British homeowners trying to sell their properties are facing a 'reality check', experts warned today after the biggest July drop in asking prices for at least two decades. The average price tag on a home coming to market fell to £373,709 this month - marking a £4,531 or 1.2 per cent decrease on June, according to Rightmove. While there is often a seasonal dip in prices in July, this is the largest monthly price drop at this time of year recorded by the firm over more than 20 years of data. Rightmove has also cut its house price forecast for 2025 from 4 per cent growth to 2 per cent amid concerns over a high level of seller competition limiting price growth, although the company is retaining its prediction of 1.15million transactions this year. London, and particularly inner London, has been a driver of asking price falls among new sellers, according to the firm. Price tags across London have fallen by 1.5 per cent month-on-month, rising to 2.1 per cent average price falls in inner London. April's increase in stamp duty has had a particular impact in London where property prices are higher. But property experts believe the market is undergoing a reset rather than collapsing, with over-optimistic sellers now correcting ambitious sale prices. Ranald Mitchell, director at Charwin Mortgages, said: 'This is not a crash, it's a reality check. Sellers can no longer name their price and expect the market to play along.' He added: 'With stock levels surging and buyers laser-focused on value, overpriced homes are being left to gather dust. The drop in asking prices is proof that wishful thinking is being replaced by market sense. 'Savvy sellers who price sharply are seeing results. Rightmove's trimmed forecast makes sense in a market that is adjusting, not collapsing.' By contrast, the North East of England has seen a 1.2 per cent rise in prices month-on-month, continuing a trend of less expensive areas seeing faster price growth. Summer sellers typically need to work harder to capture distracted buyers' attention. Justin Moy, managing director of EHF Mortgages, said: 'This has all the hallmarks of seasonal demand combined with the fall-out from April's increased stamp duty costs. 'With mortgage rates holding and lenders digging deeper into their pockets this could just be a summer blip, but the Government needs to keep a close eye on this trend.' Babek Ismayil, founder at property transaction platform OneDome, added: 'Sellers are waking up to the fact that, if you put your property on the market at an unrealistic price, it's simply not going to sell in the current market. 'And if it doesn't sell and languishes on portals, that can become a problem and see the achievable price dwindle further. This has been the case for a few years now but there now appears to be a shift, which may get the market moving in earnest finally.' Among the homes reduced in London is a freehold split-level two-bedroom flat for sale in Richmond which was put on the market in 2024 for the first time in 60 years. The property was first listed last September for £1.4million, before being reduced to £1.35million in November, £1.285million in January and £1.2million in May. In Kent, a three-bedroom semi-detached house in Kemsing was put on the market for £740,000 last October, but cut to £725,000 in February and £695,000 in June. And buyers in Hampshire could look at a two-bedroom thatched country house in Martin. The New Forest property was listed for £549,000 in March, but has now been cut to £495,000. Katy Eatenton, mortgage and protection specialist at Lifetime Wealth Management, said: 'Increased stock levels are giving sellers a reality check and they're pricing more realistically. 'People have come to understand that over-pricing can see you under-achieve when it comes to the sale price agreed. This is not a sign of a property market imploding, just one that is becoming more rooted in reality.' Tempting pricing from new sellers is said to be helping to improve buyer affordability, enticing new buyers into making inquiries. With mortgage rates falling and two more Bank of England base rate cuts still expected in 2025, Rightmove believes the overall outlook for the second half of the year remains positive. Patricia McGirr, founder of the Repossession Rescue Network, said: 'Yes, asking prices are sliding, but where I am, it's a tale of two markets. 'Family homes with decent space are holding strong. But in the investment world? Buyers are driving hard bargains and sellers are blinking first. 'Tempting price tags might boost affordability, but they're also a litmus test: if your property's not shifting, it's probably overpriced, overlooked or overhyped. 'The second half of 2025 may look rosier, but right now, the smart money's negotiating hard and getting what it wants.' Many lenders have recently made changes to their criteria, allowing some borrowers to potentially take out bigger loans. Rightmove's mortgage tracker indicates that the average two-year fixed mortgage rate is now 4.53 per cent, compared with 5.34 per cent a year earlier. Colleen Babcock, a property expert at Rightmove, said: 'We're seeing an interesting dynamic between pricing and activity levels right now. 'The healthy and improving level of property sales being agreed shows us that there are motivated buyers out there who are willing to finalise a deal for the right property. 'What's most important to remember in this market is that the price is key to selling. 'The decade-high level of buyer choice means that discerning buyers can quickly spot when a home looks overpriced compared to the many others that may be available in their area. 'It appears that more new sellers are conscious of this and are responding to this high-supply market with stand-out pricing to entice buyers and get their home sold.' Ms Babcock added: 'Crucially, buyer affordability is heading in the right direction, and another two (Bank of England base rate) cuts before 2026 would be a big boost to this.' Phillip Bishop, managing director at Perry Bishop in Cirencester, Gloucestershire, said: 'We're seeing significantly higher stock levels than a year ago but mitigated in part by a good increase in buyer registrations and viewing levels compared with last year. 'Buyers are taking their time and viewing more before deciding, and the serious and motivated sellers are pricing sensibly and getting success.' He added: 'Rarely available properties are still receiving mass interest and multiple offers. 'The Cotswolds summer market can slow over the holidays, but we expect a second wave of serious buyer activity in the autumn, with serious motivated buyers wanting to agree their purchase.' Rightmove's report was released as property firm Hamptons downgraded its 2025 rental growth forecast from 4.5 per cent to 1.0 per cent across Britain. It said this reflected a faster-than-expected market slowdown. It said the primary driver behind this cooling rental market has been the transfer of demand from the rental sector to the sales market. As mortgage rates have fallen, homeownership has become more accessible, leading to strong first-time buyer activity, Hamptons said. Hamptons said that rents on newly let properties rose by 0.4 per cent year-on-year across Britain in June, reaching £1,369 per month - the weakest growth since August 2020. Aneisha Beveridge, head of research at Hamptons, said: 'The rental market has softened more quickly than we anticipated towards the end of last year. 'What initially appeared to be a London-centric slowdown has now spread across the country, with rents declining in multiple regions and growth easing elsewhere. 'A combination of falling mortgage rates and a weaker labour market has shifted the dynamics - more affluent renters are becoming first-time buyers , while the economic slowdown is limiting what others can afford.
The Guardian
17 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Abolishing Ofwat is fine but not enough: teach water bosses that failure has consequences
In a bone dry summer, every drop of water counts. So, even though the rain is finally falling again now, it's still hard to take it for granted, or to ignore the way that everything in the countryside still feels unnervingly out of rhythm: earth too cracked, grass too bleached, wheat harvest being brought in too early, rivers too low – and, knowing what Thames Water has been pumping into them, water quite possibly too dirty to cool off in. In May, the company was fined £122.7m for the combined sins of sewage dumping and continuing to pay shareholder dividends despite its environmental failings. It responded by protesting that it might go bust if actually held accountable for its actions, a sentence that sums up everything people find infuriating about the water industry. Yet its resentful customers have no choice but to keep paying bills that are expected to rise by a third over the next five years – though Thames Water, inevitably, asked to be allowed to charge more – while wondering how we ever let a commodity this precious become so badly managed, heading into a volatile new era of summer drought and winter flood. Rivers, Jon Cunliffe notes in his newly published review of what a new Labour government should do about the water industry, are part of a country's national identity. There's a romance and a history to be preserved here, not just a life-giving water supply to be extracted or wildlife habitats to be protected. Being a neutral civil servant, what he doesn't explicitly add is that lately they have also come to symbolise corporate failure and decline of the public realm, but that too is part of the picture. Few will disagree with Cunliffe's verdict that the current regulator, Ofwat, isn't up to negotiating the complex trade-offs involved here, and that there should be a new watchdog, bringing together various powers currently scattered across Whitehall, with the ability to take control of failing water companies if needed. His ideas for increasing accountability, curbing excessive dividends and creating a new social tariff for those who can't afford to pay is welcome too. (Bills were kept too low for too long, the review concludes, meaning that when the inevitable hike came it was painfully sharp.) But that's the easy bit, compared with facing up to the consequences of chronic underinvestment by an industry that has in parts seemed quick to take the profits and slower to take responsibility. There will be outrage on the left that Cunliffe doesn't advocate nationalisation, though politically that idea was off the table before he started. (Labour said before the election that it wasn't keen to take water back into public ownership, and nothing about the fiscal hole in which it has since found itself has made the idea of spending billions on doing so more appealing: Cunliffe's terms of reference were set accordingly.) The review argues that ownership models are anyway something of a red herring – water is nationalised in Scotland but bathing water quality isn't much better there than it is south of the border, and while Welsh Water's not-for-profit model could be viable for some English companies, even that isn't necessarily a magic bullet. All of which may well be true, but might sound more convincing had ministers given him free rein to consider all the options equally. As it is, it's hardly his fault that this plan – which would still see water bills rising steeply to fund the investment in creaking infrastructure that everyone accepts is necessary – is the answer of the Treasury official he used to be, rather than of a politician. Where's the moral hazard, the price any private business should be forced to pay for failure, if in the end their customers just get stuck with the tab? It's not our fault if companies who were granted a monopoly back in 1989 over the supply of something humans literally can't live without still managed somehow to make a commercial hash of it. No wonder the water minister, Emma Hardy, will take the summer to decide exactly which of Cunliffe's recommendations Labour plans to accept. The dilemma this government finds itself in over water is, of course, not unique. It is part of a common thread now linking everything from welfare reform and the still unresolved problem of funding social care, to the momentous decisions on tax now facing Rachel Reeves in her autumn budget; that these are all expensive and deep-seated problems this government's predecessors repeatedly dodged or kicked down the road. And, although Labour's commitment to actually facing reality is admirable, it turns out there were good reasons everyone else chose to bravely run away. Years of ducking and diving have only magnified those problems, to the point where selling the kind of sacrifices now required to a reluctant public is almost impossible. Getting the future governance of the industry right is crucial, of course, but that's not the end of it. Thames Water should be allowed to fail, on the grounds that it has done nothing to deserve a taxpayer bailout, and if its lenders have to take a hit, well, them's the risks. Parliament should keep digging, investigating the historic failures of oversight that allowed us to get into this mess. But, somehow, ministers need to find a broader way of conveying that failure has consequences, and not just for the taxpayer. A harder rain needs to fall, not just into rapidly shrinking reservoirs, but on to some of those responsible for managing them. Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnist
