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UK Halifax house price index rose more than expected in December On a MoM basis, the Halifax house price index rose 0.90% in December, in the UK, more than market expectations for a rise of 0.30%. The Halifax house price index had registered a revised rise of 0.50% in the preceding month.

At 0430GMT today, Brent crude oil one month futures contract is trading 0.67% or $0.34 higher at $51.30 per barrel. Yesterday, the contract declined 0.37% or $0.19, to settle at $50.96 per barrel, reversing gains from the previous session, after leading analysts projected the global oil supply glut to persist through the first half of 2015.

Ana Botin, who previously ran Santander's British business, is the fourth generation of Botins to hold the reins and the family owns roughly 2 percent of the bank's shares. She ousted CEO Javier Marin in November, replacing the former close ally of Emilio Botin with finance boss Jose Antonio Alvarez. Ana Botin's shake-up extended to payouts for investors as Santander said that dividends from 2015 earnings would be cut to 0.20 euros per share, from 0.60 euros previously, with three out of four payments to be made in cash. It previously offered investors all payments as scrip dividends. It intends to pay 30-40 percent of its recurring profits in cash dividends in future, compared with 20 percent currently. About 46 percent of Santander's shareholders are small individual investors, often customers of the bank. Santander said that the cash-raising and dividend cut should lift its core capital ratio, on a full Basel III basis, by about 1.4 percentage points to about 10 percent this year. The ratio was 8.3 percent at the end of 2014. The historically acquisitive Santander is also among those to have expressed interest in the sale of Portugal's Novo Banco, the bank created after the collapse of Banco Espirito Santo last year. Alvarez reiterated the bank was not interested in acquiring Monte del Paschi, after the Italian bank's stock closed up 12 percent. Goldman Sachs and UBS are joint bookrunners for the sale of 1.26 billion shares and the two are fully underwriting the sale.

* Spanish bank to raise 7.5 bln euros with quickfire share sale * Cuts 2015 dividend to 0.20 euros per share * Says fundraising will support growth in key markets * Expects 2014 net profit up 30 pct to 5.8 bln euros (Adds comment from chairwoman, CEO on rationale, Monte dei Paschi, demand) By Jesús Aguado and Sarah White MADRID, Jan 8 (Reuters) - Santander's new chief Ana Botin continued her shake-up of the Spanish lender on Thursday by announcing a 7.5 billion euro ($8.8 billion) capital increase and dividend cut to help to fund its expansion. Capital levels at the euro zone's biggest bank had long been under scrutiny, along with what some analysts said was an overgenerous dividend policy in the years since the 2007 global financial crisis. "I think it's the right thing to do. They needed to strengthen their capital base," said Francois Savary, chief investment officer at Swiss bank and fund management group Reyl, which owns Santander shares. Santander has weathered a deep economic crisis at home in recent years, helped by revenue from key overseas markets such as Brazil and Britain. The bank, which has several listed subsidiaries including in the United States, had previously resisted calls for it to raise cash from shareholders. However, Santander said on Thursday that the cash raised will be used to grow in its key markets, including Spain, Brazil, Britain and the United States. "The objective of this transaction is to accelerate our plans to grow organically," Botin said in an internal memo seen by Reuters. "Raising capital now will allow us to increase both customer credit and market share in our core geographies." The capital increase through an accelerated share placing surprised some investors and is the latest sign that Botin is making her mark on the bank after taking over from her late father, Emilio, who ran Santander for 28 years until his death last September. Santander also said it will report net profit of about 5.8 billion euros for last year, roughly 30 percent higher than in 2013. Income should rise about 6 percent from 2013, with losses from bad debts expected to fall by about 10 percent, it said. It is due to report full 2014 results on Feb. 3. Demand for the shares already covered those on offer, Chief Executive Jose Antonio Alvarez told a news conference, and pricing was expected to be announced early on Friday. HEALTH CHECK Santander passed a health check of European banks last year, but its capital strength was weaker than peers including BBVA and BNP Paribas under a recession scenario used for the European Banking Authority's estimates. Santander is considered systemically important to global banking, which means that it has to hold extra capital because of the damage its collapse could cause to markets. Ana Botin, who previously ran Santander's British business, is the fourth generation of Botins to hold the reins a

Real estate investment trust British Land has sold a retail and office portfolio in an off-market deal to Legal & General Property for £219.6m. Kingswood Retail Park in Hull was sold for £58m, with House Fraser in Birmingham sold for £71.4m, while the Grenfell Island office, leisure and retail block in Maidenhead fetched £90.2m

According to analysts at Bank of America-Merrill Lynch, if Brent crude falls to $40 a barrel in the near term, Saudi Arabia or non-OPEC producers could be forced to cut production, writes The Telegraph.

High demand perks up housebuilder Persimmon but stellar gains could be slowing down: Housebuilder Persimmon said revenues jumped 23% to £2.6billion last year in a strong housing market.

Persimmon to step up recruitment of ex-military as bricklayers and joiners: Britain’s biggest housebuilding firm has stepped up its recruitment of former military personnel as bricklayers and joiners and called on the rest of the industry to follow suit to combat severe skill shortages.

Oil recovers as Bank of America says Saudi Arabia may ‘blink’ on cuts: Brent crude fell below $50 per barrel on Wednesday for the first time since 2009 as Bank of America-Merrill Lynch warned that the sharp drop in prices could prompt Saudi Arabia and other petro-states into cutting production.

Fed: low oil prices ‘likely to be positive’: Wall Street reacted positively to the latest minutes from the U.S. Federal Reserve’s December meeting, after policymakers said that lower oil prices were “likely to be positive”.

Top house prices slow as stamp duty kicks in: House price growth in London’s most sought-after boroughs has been overtaken by areas outside the capital for the first time since the credit crunch.

At 0430GMT today, Brent crude oil one month futures contract is trading 0.66% or $0.34 higher at $51.49 per barrel. Yesterday, the contract climbed 0.1% or $0.05, to settle at $51.15 per barrel, rebounded from recent losses, after the Energy Information Administration reported that US crude oil inventories unexpectedly declined 3.06 million barrels to 382.4 million in the week ended January 2.

I agree with your comments. I can only think that the new Stamp Duty regime for property in excess of £975,000 which is more expensive is assumed to dent BKG's sales in the year ahead which I could not disagree with more. I am assuming BKG will see a 7-10% increase in housing transactions in the next 12 months despite the stamp duty increase as the quality of its buildings are superior to any other listed House Builder on the stock market. ATB

MEDIA-Tycoon Telis Mistakidis pays around 46 mln pounds for London flat - London Evening Standard

If oil drops to $45 or lower and stays there, Russia is going to face a big problem Mikhail Liluashvili, from Oxford Economics

Leading British oil services companies are already being caught in the crossfire of the fierce price war being waged by Opec against shale oil and gas drillers and frackers in the United States. Explorers and producers are forecast to cut spending on American projects by up to 40% this year, even after the cost of hiring drilling rigs, a key indicator of the health of the industry, halved over the past 18 months. - The Times

House prices will drop across the U.K. in 2015, says CEBR: House prices will fall across Britain this year, according to a leading economic forecaster, with the greatest declines expected to be in London.

Hikma shares jump on growth injection: Shares in Hikma Pharmaceuticals jumped more than 6% higher to a record high as two highly-rated brokers thought there was more to come for investors. While the bigger players have grappled with the so-called “patent cliff”, makers of generic drugs, which are copies of the branded drugs, have enjoyed record trading. The biggest growth opportunity for Hikma comes from its injectables business. Generic drugs delivered by syringe generate about half of group total sales and 58% of operating profit. The injectable business raised sales by about 26% to $677 million (£444.5 million) in 2014. Hikma is generating plenty of cash from the increased sales. The majority of it is being invested in growing the business through acquisition. However, investors are also benefiting. They received a 7 cents special dividend in 2013, on top of the 20 cents full-year dividend. The dividend payments of about $54 million expected in 2014 are also covered more than six times by free cash flow. Meanwhile, the balance sheet is looking solid. The company is forecast to have net debt of about $285 million, against a balance sheet with net assets of $1.26 billion, when it reports results for the year ending December 31. The shares have soared more than 300% during the past five years, from about 520p in early 2010. The majority of those gains have come in the past 18 months after bumper sales of the U.S. generic antibiotic doxycycline, which treats a range of illnesses, including the tic-borne Lyme disease. With that in mind, the shares – trading on 23 times forecast earnings – are looking quite expensive, especially when you consider earnings per share growth of about 10% for the next two years and a prospective dividend yield of about 1%. Hikma is an excellent performer, but Questor retains a hold at these prices. Hikma Pharmaceuticals at £21.30+ 148p Questor Says ‘Hold’.

Senior moment: To lose two parents may look like carelessness, but losing two important Executives need not be a sign of corporate inattention. David Squires’ impending move from Cobham to run rival industrial group Senior comes barely a year after Cobham knew it was losing Richard Tyson to TT Electronics. But on each occasion ChiefExecutive Bob Murphy made a point of issuing a gracious farewell. Indeed, there is some reciprocity between Cobham and Senior: Simon Nicholls, Cobham’s finance Director, joined the board in May last year, having fulfilled the same role at the rival group. Also critical will be Mr Squires’ experience running restructuring programmes: these are on course to generate £85 million in savings for Cobham by 2019. In theory, the smaller businesses that make up Senior should be susceptible to rationalisation. In practice, agreements and clearances related to individual companies within the group may make this more difficult than a management consultancy case study would suggest. Harder still will be finding new streams of revenue to make up for the shrinking military budgets that make this rationalisation necessary.

Demand for mortgages declined significantly in 4Q 2014, indicated BoE According to the Bank of England’s (BoE) latest credit conditions survey for Q4 2014, the overall availability of secured credit to households rose slightly in the three months to early December, while demand for secured lending for house purchases declined significantly in Q4 2014. The overall availability of credit to the corporate sector was unchanged in Q4, while demand for credit rose, except from small businesses.