The number of sales hit a 10-month high

The number of sales hit a 10-month high.Stocks of property on agents’ books rose last month, indicating that sellers have also decided that the market is turning up and that fears of a property crash have proved unfounded.Ian Perry, Rics’ housing spokesman, said: “The upturn in demand and improved outlook on interest rates have led surveyors to predict house price rises for the first time since early 2004 – although these are expected to be small.”The Rics survey comes after a separate survey over the weekend from the property website Rightmove showed that vendors had felt confident enough to increase their asking prices in October for the first time in four months.. When the sale to Platinum was announced in November, 2003, Mr Matthews said it represented “the best way to maximise value for shareholders”. Supporters of Mr Matthews said that even though the logistics business had changed hands for three times its value, he had created £1bn of value for Hays shareholders through the dismantling of the group.The Los Angeles-based venture capital fund is run by the financier Tom Gores and is listed by Forbes magazine as America’s 34th-largest private company. Commenting on the deal, Platinum’s European managing director Brian Wall said: “We knew this could be a substantial opportunity for ACR to continue its development.”.

But I would point out that this transaction followed a full, fair and proper auction, and that was the best price available at the time.”Citigroup Global Markets, which advised Hays on the sale of its logistics business to Platinum, also refused to comment on the deal with Kuehne and Nagel. The sale price includes £28m of debt in the company, renamed ACR Logistics, which the Swiss company will assume.
Colin Matthews, who was chief executive of Hays at the time of the sale to Platinum, refused to comment on yesterday’s deal.A spokesman for Mr Matthews said: “Colin isn’t talking about Hays any more. An American private-equity firm that bought the haulage and logistics division of the former conglomerate Hays just over 18 months ago made a 200 per cent profit yesterday by selling the business on to a Swiss logistics company. Platinum Equity paid £102.4m for the Hays business in February last year and has sold it to Kuehne and Nagel International, one of the world’s largest logistics companies, for £340m.

The contract, which involves investment of £2bn to bring two reactors back into service at the giant Bruce station in Canada, is fresh evidence of the resurgence in interest in nuclear power as a means of tackling global warming.
The work will takes four years and will increase Bruce’s capacity to 6,200 megawatts – enough to supply 4 million homes or about one-quarter of the electricity consumed by Ontario on a typical day.Bruce, which has a total of eight reactors including the two being brought back into service, was formerly owned by British Energy but was sold to a consortium of Canadian companies in 2003 after the UK nuclear generator hit financial crisis.The reactors at Bruce are based on the Candu design, which will be one of the candidates for use in the UK if Tony Blair decides to sanction the building of a new generation of nuclear power stations.A decision is due early next year after a review of the UK’s energy needs and how best it can achieve its targets to cut carbon emissions.Amec is likely to be one of the bidders for British Nuclear Group, the state-owned company responsible for most of the UK’s civil nuclear sites, which is due to be sold off next year.. The Bank said it would then ease off again before once again passing this level at the end of the two-year forecast period.. Amec, the UK engineering group, was awarded a £250m contract yesterday to oversee the expansion of one of the world’s biggest nuclear power stations. The latest increase drove the rate of inflation above the Government’s 2% target for the third consecutive month. In its quarterly Inflation Report in August, the Bank of England predicted CPI inflation would rise above the target in the short term.