Business News Round Up (27/11/2020)
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Edinburgh hailed as a global innovation hub in new report
Edinburgh has been named one of the most innovative cities in the UK, and among the world’s top 50, in a report produced by property consultancy Knight Frank. The Scottish capital placed behind only the so-called ‘golden triangle’ of research university cities – London, Cambridge and Oxford – in the UK and globally was ahead of the likes of Amsterdam, Brussels and Oslo. Knight Frank’s Active Capital Report ranked 288 major cities across the world on 100 variables, including data related to strength of research outputs, economic prosperity, the ability to conduct business and quality of life. With 161 research institutions, Edinburgh was found to be a hub of research and development activity, ranking third in the UK behind London and Cambridge. The city also has an active tech community, with only Cambridge having more tech meet-ups per 100,000 population. Edinburgh was rated the second highest in the UK for quality of life and among the world’s top 50. Earlier this year Knight Frank’s Wealth Report also found Edinburgh to be among the top 20 major world cities for wellbeing.
https://www.insider.co.uk/news/new-report-names-edinburgh-global-23071256
Manchester the top BTL investment hub as hidden gems found UK-wide
Manchester has topped the list of the best areas for landlords to invest in, according to Aldermore’s ‘Buy to Let City Tracker’. The tracker assessed five key indicators that impact desirability – average total rent, short-term returns through yield, long-term return over 10 years, the lowest number of vacancies as a proportion of total housing stock, and percentage of the city population in the rental market – in 50 cities across the UK. According to Aldermore, Manchester’s main selling points for private landlords are that it performs well for rental returns and long-term house price growth. More importantly, though, it has one of the biggest rental markets in the UK, with 31% of Manchester’s population being private renters. The city also has some of the lowest vacancy rates across any city included in the tracker. This is combined with above average rental ability (£428 per room per month) and security in investment with property prices having increased by 4.1% annually on average in the last decade.
Glasgow close to having no top grade offices to let
A critical shortage of top grade office space in Glasgow means it will take only one “modest” letting to leave the city with nothing to offer potential tenants or investors. The first ever detailed survey of the city’s office market by real estate adviser CBRE has found that only 6,400 sq ft, or 0.02%, of Grade A space out of a total 2,067,464 sq ft is currently vacant. Andy Cunningham, senior director, described the situation as “serious” and could deter companies and investors from coming into the city. He put the blame partly on the trend to convert offices to residential use, fuelled by the demand for city centre living and home working. This has overtaken the pre-Covid trend of converting office buildings for hotel use. Increasingly landlords with Grade B buildings, which need a big investment to bring them into line with their competitors, are reviewing their options in case they can find a higher value use for their asset.
https://dailybusinessgroup.co.uk/2020/11/glasgow-close-to-having-no-top-grade-offices-to-let/
Factories expecting fewer job cuts as confidence grows
Scottish Engineering, the trade group for the country’s industrial companies, said expectations of job losses had slowed amid “tentative signs of improvement”. Companies planning further redundancies has fallen from 60% in the previous quarter to 21% with 15% unsure based on lack of forecast clarity. This provided some optimism for 2021, although concern remains that the hardest hit sectors in the sector will see slower recovery as their demand recovery lags. Key attention points such as orders, output, and exports show “considerable” improvement from an average -43% to an average -4%. Confidence overall has improved significantly from –40% to -9%. Members also remain concerned about Brexit and that even with a “best of a bad bunch” deal scenario, SE says there will still be significant changes to almost every aspect of the way companies do business with Europe.
https://dailybusinessgroup.co.uk/2020/11/factories-expecting-fewer-job-cuts-as-confidence-grows/