United Kingdom

U.K. house prices climbed to within touching distance of a record high at the end of last year, according to industry figures from Nationwide Building Society, suggesting the resilient property market gathered more momentum, Bloomberg News reported. The lender said prices rose 0.7% month-on-month to an average of £269,426 ($338,000), a fraction below the record high of £273,751 ($343,000) set in the summer of 2022.

The Bank of England said on Thursday it had allotted 46.180 billion pounds ($57.49 billion) at its first short-term repo of 2025, the second-highest amount on record and up from 38.075 billion pounds at a repo on Dec. 19, Reuters reported. The short-term repo allows banks to borrow money from the BoE - usually for a seven-day period - in exchange for high-quality collateral and is designed by the BoE to keep interbank lending rates close to its policy interest rate. The highest amount allotted in the repo was 46.743 billion pounds on Oct.

The company behind a proposed multi-billion pound theme park dubbed the 'Dartford Disneyland' is being taken to court by Hollywood studio Paramount, Yahoo Finance U.K. reported. London Resort Company Holdings (LRCH) had hoped to build the controversial attraction on the 372-acre Swanscombe Peninsula near Dartford, Kent and close to south Essex. First announced back in 2012, the huge park was envisioned to feature rollercoasters, water parks, hotels and live entertainment venues and would have been at least three times the size of any other theme park in the UK.

Insolvencies and restructuring could rise further over the start of 2025 as firms face more increased cost pressures, industry experts have warned, PAMedia.com reported. Restructuring bosses have cautioned that impending cost rises linked to the autumn Budget could particularly weigh on the retail, hospitality and care sectors. It comes after official figures pointed towards an uptick in insolvencies at the end of this year. Company insolvencies lifted by 13% in November compared with the previous month, although they were lower year-on-year, according to the Office for National Statistics.

The number of UK retailers on the brink of collapse surged by a quarter in recent months, a new report has warned, PAMedia.com reported. The strain on the retail sector follows new data showing a drop in the number of people heading to the shops during Boxing Day sales. The latest Red Flag Alert report from insolvency specialist Begbies Traynor found 2,124 UK retailers were in critical financial distress between October and December 16.

Swedish electric-vehicle battery maker Northvolt said on Friday it expects to line up additional bankruptcy financing by late January after engaging with over 100 lenders and potential investors, Reuters reported. Northvolt entered bankruptcy on Nov. 21 with a $100-million bankruptcy loan from Swedish truck maker Scania, a shareholder and its biggest customer. But that loan was not intended to carry Northvolt through its entire bankruptcy restructuring, and the company has continued to evaluate proposals for additional financing from strategic and financial investors.

The U.K. economy stagnated in the previous quarter in a blow to the government’s hopes for growth, the Wall Street Journal reported. Gross domestic product flatlined between July and September, according to data set out Monday by the Office for National Statistics. The ONS had previously estimated growth of 0.1% over the third quarter. Growth in the preceding quarter was also a little lower than previously calculated, the agency said. “The economy was weaker in the second and third quarters of this year than our initial estimates suggested,” ONS statistics director Liz McKeown said.

British shoppers spent a little more as wages continue to grow, a boost to the government’s hopes of a consumption uptick at the end of the year, the Wall Street Journal reported. Total U.K. retail sales were 0.2% higher in November than in October, the Office for National Statistics said Friday. That reverses the previous month’s downturn, when consumers held off on spending ahead of the government’s budget at the end of the month, and warm, dry weather deterred buying of winter fashion.

The Bank of England kept its main interest rate unchanged at 4.75% on Thursday but policymakers became more divided about whether rate cuts were needed to tackle a slowing economy, Reuters reported. Three of the BoE's nine-person Monetary Policy Committee - Deputy Governor Dave Ramsden and external members Swati Dhingra and Alan Taylor - voted for a quarter-point rate cut to 4.5%. But BoE Governor Andrew Bailey said the central bank needed to stick to its existing "gradual approach" to cutting rates.