At the beginning of February, Melanie Baker, Senior Economist at RLAM, provided her UK economic outlook for 2020 to a packed audience at the MSCI Property Seminar. Yet her GDP forecasts came with an unusual caveat; "any forecasts are subject to the impact of the Coronavirus". Many of us in the room, however, paid little heed to the caveat, eager instead to hear about the prospects of a post-election, Boris bounce. The impact of a flu-like virus in a previously little-known Chinese city on the other side of the world seemed of little consequence. Fast forward three weeks and the virus has spread to every continent, bar Antarctica, sending the world's stock markets into free-fall. The global markets have just suffered their worst week since 2008, wiping $5 trillion from the value of listed companies, and the FTSE 100 Index has recorded it's lowest close since July 2016, down 11.1% for the week. Worrying times indeed. It may be scant consolation for the poor flood-hit residents of Upton-upon-Severn, who are currently encircled by floodwaters and right now assessing the impact of Storm Jorge, but becoming a temporary "island town" at least means they don't have to worry about the prospect of self-isolation.
On Thursday, The Weekly was in attendance at the inaugural IPF conference ‘People, Politics and Purpose – Changing themes in UK real estate’. Key topics for the day included the challenges and opportunities presented by an ageing population, innovations in debt finance, and the current hot topic of ‘social impact investing’. The opening keynote speech from Sarah Harper CBE, Clore Professor of Gerontology at the University of Oxford, provided illuminating insights into the world’s fast-changing demography. Wind back to the 18th century, for example, and there were only 10 centenarians in the whole of Europe. Yet, by 2050, there could be more than 500,000 in the UK alone and 120 million across Europe. What is more, half of all babies being born today in the UK are projected to live until they are 104! In a week when Hampshire resident, Bob Weighton, reluctantly accepted the title of world’s oldest man, the statistics put a different perspective on his 111-year-old milestone. These demographic changes will impact all of us. And, with an ageing global population expected to grow from seven billion now to ten billion in 2050, the property industry needs to be alive to these changing dynamics.
As concerts, conferences and sporting events around the world have faced postponement or cancellation, the status of the Summer Olympics in Tokyo is increasingly being called into question. There are two athletes, however, who definitely won't be competing come the summer. Former Olympic silver medalist and five-time grand slam champion, Maria Sharapova, announced her retirement from the sport this week in Vogue and Vanity Fair (where else?!). The teenage superstar took the tennis world by storm winning Wimbledon at the age of 17 back in 2004, but her legacy will undoubtedly be tarnished by the positive drug test that led to a two year ban in 2017. Doping is also the reason we won't be seeing China's three-time Olympic champion Sun Yang in Tokyo. The swimmer was handed an eight year ban this week for a second drugs offence. Vindication then for Great Britain's Duncan Scott who infamously refused to shake hands, or share the podium with Sun at the 2019 World Aquatic Championships last July. And for those who tuned into BBC's Panorama programme, "Mo Farah and the Salazar Scandal", the spectre of drugs once again hovers over one of Britain's most decorated track athletes. Farah's cased is rather more nuanced than the infamous drug scandals that have tainted athletics for so long. There is nothing as blatant here as the bearded female shot putters of the Cold War era, or the flagrant steroid use of Ben Johnson who was so juiced up in the 1980s that his eyes leaked of stanozolol! But, whilst investigative journalists continue to try and join the dots, we are again being forced to question whether some of Farah's most memorable Olympic performances were all just a pharmaceutical hoax. Let's hope not.