All articles by Giles Barrie – Page 16
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NewsDubai’s woes show a market built on sand
As Sultan bin Sulayem gunned his speedboat towards the building site in the sea, this correspondent was happy to bask in the glory of a reasonable-sized scoop. Back in 2002 (Property Week‘s International supplement, 30.11.02), we were one of the first magazines to go on a tour of the epic ...
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Blogs
Prince Charles, Boris Johnson, the Candys & The Sunday Times - the news never stops
I don't normally spend Saturday lunchtime loitering underneath the famous clock at Waterloo station - but this weekend I was there, in my football kit. Why? Because I was due to meet the Sunday Times to hand over documents relating to one of the property stories of the year. This, ...
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Blogs
Contemplating a run for the border...
I am sitting on the train back from Brighton - but judging by one of the big themes at the year's biggest investment market gathering I should be on the Eurostar. One of the repeated messages to the 350 fund managers and advisers at the IPD/IPF conference was 'Go Global.' ...
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InsightOlympic legacy must not be saddled with CPO debt
With the International Olympic Committee visiting London this week, it is the right time to examine progress on the 2012 Games venues — but more importantly for property, the plans for a true legacy
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Blogs
A pause for celebration...
Apologies for not blogging on Friday afternoon - I was celebrating with my team. I took a rare, impromptu half day after one of the best days in the journalism calendar the Periodicals Training Council Awards, where the best young business and consumer magazine journalists are honoured. The reason ...
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InsightOver-expansion holed Scotland’s flagship
Why are two Kenmore companies in receivership and 21 in administration (recovery, p22-p23), what does this say about the banks, and how is Scottish property faring in general as we end this grim year? First, Kenmore’s achievements: chairman John Kennedy created a flagship for Scotland in what, until 2007, ...
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Blogs
Norwood shows its Klass
I spent a highly enjoyable evening last night in the company of Cherie Blair, Simon Cowell, Myleene Klass and Britain’s Got Talent winner Diversity. Not the usual property do, but with Richard Desmond as president, Anglo-Jewish charity Norwood has certainly upped the celebrity count at its annual dinner. This has ...
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Blogs
Tell Boris Sarkozy: 'The French should eat cake!'
'The poor, deluded housewives of France are buying chocolate cake made in Walthamstow, under the impression that it was made in Austria!' Mayor for London Boris Johnson was on his usual irreverent form at lunchtime today in singing the praises of London dessert maker G before a 200 strong ...
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Insight
Obituary: Robert Dean
Giles Barrie remembers the Savills commercial chairman who played a key role at Canary Wharf and IPD
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InsightRetail bewildered by investment bubble
Manchester’s BCSC conference this week came against the recurring and strange backdrop of a weakening occupational market and an investment market that has ignited once again
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Blogs
Retail heads are united in Manchester
I have little time for Manchester United - its boatloads of debt are a poor example to football and like most fans I am intensely jealous of their success. But I do admire two things about them: Sir Alex Ferguson for his sheer longevity and attacking drive, and Old Trafford ...
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Blogs
Randall on Madoff at Jewish Association of Business Ethics
I spent a riveting evening yesterday at the Jewish Association for Business Ethics Annual Dinner and Seminar hearing industry luminaries wrestling with some pretty profound problems. Sky News presenter and Daily Telegraph editor-at-large Jeff Randall deserves credit for posing some very tough questions – as do his panelists Nick Leslau, ...
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Blogs
What do CB Richard Ellis’s Sue Clayton, Kitchen Le Frenais Morgan’s Ian Kitchen and Helical Bar’s Gerald Kaye all have in common?
What do CB Richard Ellis’s Sue Clayton, Kitchen Le Frenais Morgan’s Ian Kitchen and Helical Bar’s Gerald Kaye all have in common? They all graduated from Reading University in estate management in 1979. [gallery] Ditto Property Merchant Group’s James Bowdidge, PruPim’s Peter Best and Cushman Wakefield UK ...
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Blogs
Some relief from Empty Property Rates please!
To House of Commons Dining Room B on Wednesday lunchtime to hear the latest on the property industry’s continuing battle to reinstate empty rate relief. The big guns led by the British Property Federation appear to have given up the ghost, but the Business Centres Association, fights on. It was ...
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InsightBanks and propcos make perfect bedfellows
Land Securities, British Land and Grosvenor are all in the frame for the biggest new property game in town: advising and forming joint ventures with banks
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Blogs
How lucky we are
Last Wednesday night before setting off for a couple of days `r and r’ with Mrs Barrie in Madrid I was reminded of just how lucky most of people in property and media are. The occasion? The launch of LandAid’s `Foundation Partners’ scheme, through which 25 of the biggest company ...
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InsightOffices 2009 captures new zeitgeist
Tuesday’s Offices 2009 extravaganza organised by Property Week and CoreNet Global UK, generated two big talking points for the 800 people who attended throughout the day. Can landlords and tenants use the recession to Bury the hatchet once and for all? And when will development ever start again, and ...
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Blogs
As if my mind went blank...
I had a nightmare moment last night. Having enjoyed the challenge of chairing Offices 09, checked proofs and laid out next week’s Occupiers section with Hardeep I enjoyed a chilled glass of white at the CoreNet Stand. Fifteen minutes later I was back on stage in front of 600 property ...
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Blogs
Will mini-boom lead to hiring revival?
Friday’s Leader Column on whether now is the right time to start up a new agency has generated a fair degree of comment. My old sparring partner Peter Bill took up the same argument in his weekly column in Estates Gazette, too, which shows what a big talking point this ...
