首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
In Britain’s overheated property market, the only things hotter than the prices of the houses for sale are the firms that build
In Britain’s overheated property market, the only things hotter than the prices of the houses for sale are the firms that build
admin
2017-03-15
48
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.
What are the changes?
选项
答案
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. Britain may soon weaken "green belts" around towns and cities. Firms may soon be able to buy land in suburb-sized chunks.
解析
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/auSO777K
本试题收录于:
NAETI高级口译笔试题库外语翻译证书(NAETI)分类
0
NAETI高级口译笔试
外语翻译证书(NAETI)
相关试题推荐
Thelackofadequatehousing,especiallyinprosperousurbancenters,ledtoastagnantjobmarket.
Theelectionsof2015and2017broughtin103newToryMPs,madeupathirdofthepartyintheCommons.
Thiscountryisinthesocialtransformationperiodnow,andthesocialtransformationis________tobringdeepchangesoffemale
EveryyearBerryBros&Rudd,Britain’soldestwinemerchant,issuesapocket-sizedpricelist.Readingoldcopiesmakesamateur
EveryyearBerryBros&Rudd,Britain’soldestwinemerchant,issuesapocket-sizedpricelist.Readingoldcopiesmakesamateur
Havingmorethan800minternetusersmeansthecountryhasanoverabundanceofdata,amostimportantinputforAIservices.
Asthenewepidemicspreadthroughoutthecountry,thegovernmentistryingto________thediseasewithinthatregion.
下面你将听到联合国秘书长接受有关奖项的一段讲话。Mr.Chairman,Excellencies,LadiesandGentlemen,Ishouldlike,firstofall,toonceagainthank
当年为了实现乌拉圭回合,各个成员费了很大劲儿,但事后的结果并不乐观,世界经济更不平衡,两极分化越加严重。面对这一现象,发展中国家不能容忍,发达国家也感到了危机。正因为如此,大家才把多哈回合定为发展回合。这是WTO历史上巨大的进步,也是各个成员富有远见的选择
斯蒂芬?斯皮尔伯格最初执导电影的时候,导演在好莱坞最为重要,而如今拍摄电影正值市场控制了整个行业。无论在哪个时期他始终是世界上最有分量的制片人,这说明他才华横溢,又极富变通。斯皮尔伯格对现代电影最重要的贡献在于他有着敏锐的视角去发现并吸引广大观众
随机试题
使用选区工具将图像的部分进行选取,使用移动工具并再按下键盘中的()键,对图像中选区部分进行移动时会出现下图像所示效果。
甲、乙双方达成一份协议,其要点为:甲方按照乙方指定的型号和技术要求购进一套设备;甲方将设备交付乙方租赁使用,设备所有权属于甲方;乙方按期交纳租金;租赁期满,设备归乙方所有。按照我国合同法,此协议属于()。
“一个钥匙开一把锁”体现的是德育的方向性原则。
单纯腰椎压缩性骨折,压缩程度在1/3以内应采取
银行通过分析项目的生产规模,可了解项目是否实现了(),进而了解项目的经济效益状况,为贷款决策提供依据。
根据《中华人民共和国票据法》的规定,下列各项中,属于票据丧失后可以采取的补救措施有()。
在文言文知识总结课上,教师准备向学生举几个倒装的例子,以下各句不合适的是()。
中国共产党第十八届中央委员会第三次全体会议公报提出,面对复杂的国际形势和艰巨繁重的国内改革发展稳定任务,要坚持稳中求进的工作总基调,着力(),沉着应对各种风险挑战,全面推进社会主义各项工作取得新进展。
李某和王某两邻居素来不和。王某怀恨在心,总想寻机将李某教训一顿。王某深知李某身体瘦弱但却性情暴躁,便设计要激怒李某,让其先动手打人,自己再予以还击。某日,王某依计而行,李某果然动怒先出手打王某,王某趁机还击。谁料,李某盛怒之下随手拿起桌上的剪刀刺伤了王某的
Today’sworkerisnolongerwillingtoworkinanauthoritariananddehumanizingenvironmentWorkerswantmeaningintheirwork
最新回复
(
0
)