首页
登录
职称英语
In Britain’s overheated property market, the only things hotter than the pri
In Britain’s overheated property market, the only things hotter than the pri
游客
2025-01-11
45
管理
问题
In Britain’s overheated property market, the only things hotter than the prices of the houses for sale are the firms that build them. On March 26th Taylor Woodrow and George Wimpey agreed upon a £5 billion ($9.8 billion) merger to create the country’s largest housebuilder.
The financial logic of the deal seems hard to fault. Last year the two firms built about 22,000 homes in Britain, a tenth of all completions. Together they will be able to trim costs by more than £70 million a year and they will be in a stronger position in America, where they have operations in Florida, California, Arizona and Texas.
The merger may be the biggest of its kind but it is not the first, as a wave of consolidation sweeps through the industry. Of the country’s ten biggest builders in 2002, only six remain. The rest have been taken over by the three largest firms. Four years ago the top three firms controlled about 20% of the market; now they have around 30%.
The upheaval is transforming an industry that Kate Barker, a member of the Bank of England’s monetary-policy committee, heavily criticised in 2004. Ms. Barker was investigating why the supply of new houses had responded so sluggishly to the house-price boom, with completions actually falling to a low of about 175,000 in 2001, although they have since staged a recovery. One reason she highlighted was a fragmented and inefficient industry, whose firms competed not for customers by offering better homes or building them more cheaply but for that scarce British commodity, land with permission to develop. Local firms dominated their regions because they often stood a better chance of gaming the planning system than their national rivals. Quality often suffered because demand was so great that builders could sell all but the shoddiest of homes.
Two things have since changed. First, publicly quoted builders now look vulnerable to takeovers from rivals or private-equity firms because rising house prices have pushed up the value of their land faster than their share prices. This is partly because they value land on their books at its historic purchase price, rather than its current price. So it has often been cheaper to get land by pouncing on a rival than by buying it on the open market, says Kate Moy, an analyst at Teather & Greenwood, a stockbroker.
The second change is that Britain may soon weaken longstanding rules that have preserved "green belts" around towns and cities. Another report by the energetic Ms Barker, released in December, argued that farms and parks will have to be concreted over to provide living space for an extra 209,000 new households each year over the next two decades. One consequence is that firms may soon be able to buy land in suburb-sized chunks.
The potential change has sparked a flurry of interest in land adjoining towns and cities that may be reclassified. That seems to be shifting the balance of power from local builders to large firms with enough capital to buy rights to huge tracts of land. A sign of the shift, says Peter Damesick, head of research at CB Richard Ellis, is that even institutional investors with little previous experience are now getting into the game of speculating on town-edge land.
With interest in land running high the merger between George Wimpey and Taylor Woodrow is unlikely to be the last, if indeed it proceeds. Other builders and private-equity firms are running their slide-rules over the two companies, whose shares have gained on optimism that a counterbid may emerge. And several smaller housebuilders are also expected to fall to bids soon. Given the industry’s generally shoddy customer service, few of them will be missed. [br] What is Kate Barker’s criticism?
选项
答案
Ms. Barker was investigating why the supply of new houses had responded so sluggishly to the house-price boom, with completions actually falling. It is a fragmented and inefficient industry. Firms competed not for customers but for that scarce British commodity, land with permission to develop. Local firms have a better chance of gaming the planning system than their national rivals. Quality often suffered because demand was great.
解析
转载请注明原文地址:https://tihaiku.com/zcyy/3908645.html
相关试题推荐
InBritain’soverheatedpropertymarket,theonlythingshotterthanthepri
Thewaythingsarelooking,theroyalfamilywillneedtostartbulkbuying
Thewaythingsarelooking,theroyalfamilywillneedtostartbulkbuying
Powermeansanabilitytodothingsandcontrolothers,togetotherstodo
LordPercyofNewcastle,Britain’sministerofeducationin1924-29,wasno
LordPercyofNewcastle,Britain’sministerofeducationin1924-29,wasno
Mychildrenwenttoprivateschool,andgiventhewaythingsareinoureduc
Mychildrenwenttoprivateschool,andgiventhewaythingsareinoureduc
Mychildrenwenttoprivateschool,andgiventhewaythingsareinoureduc
Mychildrenwenttoprivateschool,andgiventhewaythingsareinoureduc
随机试题
Hepeeredoveratthewrithingblacknessthatjerkedconvulsivelywiththej
Lastyear’seconomyintheUnitedStatesshouldhavewontheOscarforbest
不属于抗心律失常药物类型的是()。A:钠通道阻滞剂 B:ACE抑制剂 C:
21世纪是海洋世纪,神秘的海洋成为人类探索的重要领域。 海底锰结核主要分布在(
既具有酸性又具有还原性的药物是A.苯巴比妥 B.维生素A.C.维生素B.D.维
患者,女,36岁。因车祸致腹部闭合性损伤入院,左中下腹持续性剧烈疼痛伴腰背部酸痛
双孔隧道应设置人行横通道或人行疏散通道,人行横通道的间隔和隧道通向人行疏散通道入
(2015年5月)企业采用科学的方法,通过各种途径,采集有关企业各类人员的工资福
案例五: 一般资料:求助者,女性,21岁,职业高中毕业,某超市收银员。 案例
应用糖皮质激素治疗特发性血小板减少性紫癜,以下说法正确的是A.仅适用于慢性期
最新回复
(
0
)