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Housing market slowing, surveys show: More evidence that the housing market is slowing has emerged with figures showing a dip in mortgage lending and a Bank of England report pointing to growing caution among potential homebuyers.

Pulling a Suffolk punch: Greene King, Suffolk brewer of Abbot Ale, IPA and Old Speckled Hen, has more in common with Suffolk Punches than just their point of origin. The huge chestnut draughthorses that dominate Ipswich FC’s crest and have pulled many a dray, are known for their size, their endurance and their surprisingly energetic gait. But there is not much demand for their pulling power these days and few Suffolk Punches are left. The £723 million bid for Spirit Pub is just such a deal, albeit its biggest. Spirit’s 1,200 pubs would slot well into the brewer’s south and southeast bias. Barclays reckons at 109.5p, teaming up with Spirit should lift Greene King’s earnings by 6% and returns on capital to 7.9% against a weighted average cost of capital of 7.1%. There are plenty of synergies to be had from cutting out duplicate costs. Parcelling up and selling off unwanted tenanted pubs could come afterwards. Promising 8p in cash was all the sugar needed to persuade Spirit’s board to open the books. It should also lure skittish Spirit shareholders. Injecting new bloodlines into Greene King should not change its character. But driving a much bigger team could be difficult in a sector where returns are already hard to come by. The risk is that Greene King, like the Suffolk Punch, becomes a victim of its size.

Total oil Chief killed in Moscow jet crash: Christophe de Margerie, the Chief Executive of the French oil group Total, was killed after his private jet crashed at a Moscow airport.

The South East overtook London as the country's fastest rising market, according to online property tracker Rightmove, as the average UK house price rose by 2.6% month-on-month in October, As a whole, city house prices increased by 9.6% year-on-year but in the South East they increased by 10%. Nevertheless, London did see a massive change of pace, with prices rising 7% on the month thus reversing the declining trend observed over the previous four months. According to Rightmove's director and housing analyst Miles Shipside, "London's boom in property prices has meant areas further out are now looking much more attractive in comparison." "The ripple effect of buyers priced out of London, combined with those cashing in and moving out of the capital, means that the South East has taken London's boom-town crown." Rather than perceiving this as the return of the London boom, Shipside remarked that high-end property owners have simply returned to the market after the summer lull. He added: "The three highest priced boroughs all see substantial October increases for example." "Prices have effectively stood still over the last four months, an indication of the slowing market in some parts of the capital."

Pub group Spirit has received a fresh takeover offer from rival Greene King at about 109.5p per share. Spirit has told Greene King it would recommend the offer subject to approval of other terms and is in talks with them. Under the revised proposal, Spirit investors would get about 29% of the combined equity of the new enlarged company. "The revised proposal remains conditional on, amongst other things, confirmatory due diligence and the recommendation of the board of Spirit," Spirit said in a statement. It added: "There can be no certainty that any firm offer will be made. A further update will be provided when appropriate."

BSkyB has held talks with some of the country's largest mobile phone companies about launching a mobile phone service. The satellite broadcaster is understood to have held early-stage discussions with Vodafone, EE and O2 about a capacity deal for a "virtual" mobile phone network under the Sky brand. It is the latest sign of convergence between fixed and mobile telecoms operators and comes as BT prepares to launch its consumer mobile phone service through a wholesale deal with EE next year.

UK Rightmove house price index rose in October In the UK, the Rightmove house price index rose 2.6% on a MoM basis, in October. In the preceding month, the Rightmove house price index had advanced 0.9%

Caffe Nero percolates profit rise: Coffee retailer Caffe Nero saw an upswing in profit in the last financial year on the back of continued new store openings and increased same-store sales.

Shire gets £1 billion windfall after AbbVie drops deal: U.S. drug group AbbVie has scrapped a £34 billion deal to buy rival Shire, hitting the U.K. group’s shares but handing it a £1 billion windfall to bankroll more acquisitions.

Demand soars for sky services on the go: Growing numbers of viewers want to watch their favourite shows while on the move via smartphones and tablets, lifting sales at BSkyB

Tune Group to invest £200 million in U.K. budget hotels: AirAsia entrepreneur Tony Fernandes is ploughing £200 million into the fast-growing and highly competitive U.K. budget hotels market.

Urban Outfitters shares dive on continued sales weakness: Shares in Urban Outfitters plunged on Friday after the American retailer warned the negative sales trend it reported in September has continued in the quarter to date.

Crudely put, $80 is the new $100 for oil: A tumultuous week ended on a note of optimism as the price of oil followed stock markets higher, reflecting a glimmer of optimism about global economic prospects.

Kingston’s Bentall Centre up for grabs with £200 million-plus price tag: Bentall shopping centre in Kingston upon Thames been put up for sale after one of its Owners appointed advisers to sell its 50% stake, with a price-tag of around £200 million.

CSR bid delivers gains: The Cambridge-based microchip manufacturer CSR was picked as a Questor tip of the year because of its cutting edge technology and solid balance sheet. CSR started the year with a cash pile of about $300 million (£186 million) on the balance sheet. The company was also generating plenty of cash from trading. In 2013, CSR generated $82.3 million cash from day-to-day operating activities, up from $73.9 million the year before. The company regularly stated that at every quarter it would review the amount of cash the company needed and return any spare to shareholders. The dividend income wasn’t great at the time of the tip with a forecast yield of 1.6%, but it had an excellent track record of growth, having more than doubled in the past four years. The balance sheet also provided some support to the shares with net assets, or shareholders’ equity of $629.8 million (£391 million), or 237p per share. More than a third of those assets were cash or treasury deposits. Everything wasn’t going that well at CSR at the start of the year. The company was trying to exit the digital camera market that was being hit hard by smartphones; also chip makers are highly exposed to the underlying demand for the devices they manufacture chips for. If consumer demand falls sharply, then chip makers can be left with a lot of unwanted stock in warehouses that needs writing down. As a pointer, microchip designer ARM Holdings has suffered from falling demand for smartphones, sending the shares down by 24% so far this year. The takeover offer for CSR looks like a done deal. The CSR board has accepted an offer from Qualcomm and not Microchip. The deal value is about $2.5 billion all-cash, and U.K. retail investors will receive about 900p per share, representing a 57% premium to the share price before the Microchip “offer” back in August. We remained confident that our value picks would deliver this year, and if the deal closes at 900p it has delivered total returns of 43% in just over 10 months. We see no need to rush out and redeploy the cash, given the turbulent state of the markets. CSR at 855½p+197p Questor Says ‘Hold’.

Sky adds 46,000 new TV customers in three months: British Sky Broadcasting has increased its lead as the biggest subscription television service and has made more progress in selling other services like internet and phone deals to its customers.

BSkyB: switching channels: In the digital world, decisions are yes or no. Things are on or off. Good first quarter results from BSkyB on Thursday show that the business is switched firmly on. Pay television customers are up nearly 3%. Operating margins, at more than 16%, surpassed expectations. Selling more products per subscriber helps – internet, phone, mobile access, and high definition TV, and so on. Management has done well here. Sky now delivers just over three products to each customer. Two years ago the number was 2.7. But product growth per customer has outpaced revenue growth per customer recently, Berenberg argues – hinting that getting paid for new services is not easy. Sky needs to add new customers. Two years back Sky introduced Now TV, a new pay-as-you-go format, to do this. Now costs much less than Sky’s standard offering. A careful user could get her bill down by 60%. The risk is that Now, instead of bringing new customers, converts existing ones. Even a 5% shift of monthly customers would require adding lots of new ones to keep revenue flat. For every 10 Sky customers that switches, the company would need something of the order of 15 new ones to join Now. Penetration would rise to new highs but at a cost.

WPP takes U.K. government to court over contract: A unit of WPP, the world’s biggest advertising group, has taken legal action to stop the U.K. government moving business worth £400 million over four years to a competitor. It has also obtained a court order blocking public access to information about the case.

Saudi Arabia tests U.S. ties with oil price: By encouraging oil prices to fall, Saudi Arabia is taking a calculated gamble in its already strained relationship with the U.S., hoping that the potential damage to America’s shale industry will be offset by the geopolitical and economic prizes on offer to Washington. Chesapeake sells shale fields for $5.38 billion: Chesapeake Energy has sold a package of shale gasfields in the eastern U.S. for about $5.38 billion, at a price that was significantly higher than analysts had expected.

Poundland boosts board with new execs: Poundland has bolstered its board after hiring the Chief Executive of packaging group DS Smith and the finance Director of pub group Mitchells & Butlers as non-Executive Directors.