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Actions of the housebuilder has elapsed - dragging other housebuilders, as its results for the first half confused dark data recent showing a fall in prices internally.

Rob Perrins, Director General, said that the housing market was robust in areas where production is limited and demand is led by buyers who can afford a mortgage loan to value low or do not need a whole. This trend is not just reserved for London and the Southeast, he explained, but areas such as York, Chester and Aberdeen.

Success of Berkeley, however, was motivated by London and the company has used the downturn as an opportunity to expand its acquiring in key areas of the capital. From 2004 to 2009, she bought only five sites in West London, but in the last month 20 purchased 17. "It's directed opportunity," said Mr. Perrins.

In the six months to 31 October, reserves sales increased Berkeley 20pc over one year and revenue growth of 290 million of ￡ in 2009 to 336 million from ￡. Profit before tax was ￡ 61. 6 m. society has also revealed that its net cash 317 m stack ￡ had been reduced to 253 million from ￡ during six months as 2,512 new plots of land have swallowed.

Mr. Perrins said House prices have been stable"showing"classic signs of bobbling the merits. However, he also expressed "of enormous interest" this planning, mortgage and environmental regulation may continue to restrict market and transaction volumes.

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Traders await remaining in other countries in the euro area, budgetary issues concerns such as the Portugal and Spain, eventually will keep insidious euro.

10 Government bond yields years fell Monday and the spread of German bunds shrank after that Dublin agreed an aid programme to help fight against his Bank and fiscal crisis.

"You can argue the bailout was already a bit in the price, but the question is who is the next - Portugal and the Spain are under the microscope - and when you start thinking about selling some other things in force?", said a trader.

Carsten Stories, an economist at ING, said: "will it prevent contagion? in the short term, but not in the medium term."It soothes only markets and give others some particular respirer.En room Portugal is not off the coast of the hook yet.?

The Ireland 10-year bond yields fell to 8 239pc, narrowing of the spread of bunds to 554 bps.La spread struck a life euro high near 680 bps, but had re-tightened by more than 100 bps week last prediction of the agreement.

Performance reference Portuguese 10 year bonds more margnially 6 546pc, raising the cost of borrowing for the country as investors sought a higher yield to cover the risk of the holding of the debt.

The euro has jumped after the rescue of Ireland helped to remove a major obstacle which raged the single currency for weeks.

However, currency traders expect that relief rally will be short lived as the focus turned to the debt problems in other countries in the euro area vulnerable.

If markets enable the Portugal, perhaps next Spain after it.

"If the Portugal is forced to take a bailout then they turn their attention to the Spain and I do not know what the Government intends to do,"said Edro Schwartz, an economist at the University of San Pablo de Madrid".

Finance Minister Fernando Teixeira dos Santos (Portugal) said Sunday: "the fact that the Ireland can have a significant help plan reduces concerns, reduces uncertainty and strengthens confidence in the markets," said in a statement.

Portugal denied that he intends to ask foreign aid, seeing his situation as very different from the Ireland because its deficit and debt are lower, its banks not to face the same difficulties and there is no bubble property.

Mr Teixeira dos Santos said the Portugal banking system is "modern, sophisticated, regulated, terminate and intermediation" and budgetary consolidation was on the right track with a new budget should be adopted by Parliament on 26 November.

He said the Government was an "adequate sanitation public finances and structural reforms and clear strategy" and will do everything to meet budget 7 3pc GDP deficit targets this year and 4 6pc in 2011.

Portugal is expected at the end of the year with a public debt 82pc domestic product gross.

Many economists and policy makers believe that the current crisis is the German because of the Berlin appeal to create a mechanism for non-euro area whereby private investors would be a success, who's afraid of investors and increased spreads bonds Portuguese and Spanish bunds to unsustainable levels.

Term UK gilt were widely supported in trade in the beginning, remaining close to a minimum of three months as investors digested news Ireland troubled debt rescue package.

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Cairn said he sell a 37 5pc Sangu gas field to its Australian partner Santos International for an undisclosed amount.

Last year, Bangladesh interest the Cairn is a loss before tax of $3. 7 m (￡ 2 3 m) on revenue of $13. 2 m and the subsidiary was estimated at $17.1 m at the end of June.

Simon Thomson, Director Business Cairn said: "during the past 16 years, cairn was an ardent supporter of international investment in Bangladesh and with its partners has invested more than $billion helps provide his people security énergétique.Cairn believes that time is a time appropriate for Santos to support the property.

Cairn shares 6 387 p rose had abandoned 17pc the month last uncertainty on the sale of its Indian to FTSE-100 minor Vedanta.

The oil and gas company based Edinburgh is still negotiating with the Government of the India and the State oil company it seeks to raise money to help finance the campaign in Greenland.

The company plans to spend 1 $5.3 for drilling in the Arctic region, but his two first offshore wells have found gas in commercial quantities.

The company said last month that it will now write off the cost of 185 m $ drilling wells in extremely cold conditions and monetary operations in Greenland for the winter.

He had been drilling a third well, but technical difficulties that delayed the completion.

Cairn is still convinced that oil exists in Greenland and the US Geological Survey estimates that 50 billion barrels of oil may be present.

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By Richard Tyler
Published: 7: 59 PM GMT 01 November 2010

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David Cameron: the Prime Minister wants to do "everything that we can do" to help small businesses photo: AFP

David Cameron has asked Young, Lord Graffham him give a brutal "honest" assessment of what the Government should be doing to help people put in place and running small businesses.

Counterpart of the life of former Secretary under Margaret Thatcher, industry said that it would consider "just" affecting small businesses, including employment and pension regulations.

To give businesses a hotline number 10, Lord Young will launch an online portal to receive complaints from business and discuss problems.

"" We will set up a Web site soon for businesses communicate directly the problèmes.Il will not a social website but it could get enough social ", he said."

Appointment of Lord Young coincided with a series of initiatives by Whitehall departments designed to facilitate the life of small businesses.

Francis Maude, the Minister for the Cabinet Office said would remain the central pay 80pc of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) provider Government policy invoices with five working days."We want more Government Affairs to go to SMEs", he said.

Companies with few assets can access regime guarantee company finances flagship for the next four years, Vince Cable, said Secretary ready guarantee scheme .the company commits the Government to 700 m ￡ guarantees this year, falling to 600 million pounds of year-round prochaine.Il allocated ￡ 1 to plan for the next three years.

Minister Mark Prisk also said that m ￡ 200 to be invested funds will invest in companies with strong potential croissance.M publicly-backed equity.Prisk said that the Government intends to increase the size of these funds, which, in the past, have attracted generally between m ￡ 25 and 40 m ￡ public funds.

Lord Young of the labour law review will include considering double length of a person has to work for an employer before they can bring an action for unfair dismissal to 24 mois.Il said that it would examine also the burden on small businesses decision week last requiring all employers to provide a personal pension 2016.

He said that the objective is to encourage small business owners to hire more people. ""Back to the beginning of the 1980s when we had restrictions of use very broad, removed us and employment rose," he said.

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Still, it's worth asking the question. Yu's comment is his first public response to a disclosure on page 200 of the flotation prospectus, stating that he was absent from work for a brief period in March with a cardiological complaint.

Then there are the 13 pages of "risk factors" noting potential concerns including the fact that the company is not currently obliged to hold a licence in territories representing 27pc of its latest
full-year revenues of ￡341m and the reminder that "in some jurisdictions, online betting and gaming may be illegal".

Gambling can be a risky business, though Yu is at pains to point out how different the world's largest international online sports betting provider is to conventional bookmakers.

"What we do," he says, "is bring a community of users together and match people who have opposing views. They're betting through us but against each other. The bet is legally with us. We hold the bookmaker's licence.

"We're the bookmaker that takes the bet but we only accept the bet if we know we can perfectly hedge it with someone of an opposing view. That's the magic of our technology. We never lose money on the betting."

Founded 10 years ago by Andrew Black and Ed Wray, Betfair now has more than 3m registered users and 800,000 active customers.

Its sophisticated technology takes 4,500 bets every second, amounting to 5m transactions a day – more than all Europe's stock markets combined – with ￡284m of customer funds on deposit ready for wagering and a further ￡3,000 deposited with Betfair every minute.

Betfair claims its bet-matching technology and ability to constantly update betting odds during live sporting events give punters prices that are, on average, 24pc better than those of traditional bookmakers in horseracing. The most dramatic examples of this have become legends in the industry.

One came during a race at Cheltenham in 2006 when a customer in Pontypridd asked for a ￡10 bet on a horse called Noland but Betfair found a matching bet at 999-1 at a moment the horse was 10th. It won the race.

And in 2002 at Southwell, odds of 999-1 were found for a ￡4 bet on Family Business after its jockey Tony McCoy fell off. The other horses in the race failed to finish but McCoy managed to remount and won.

Yu, 42, is delighted to have got the float away, saying the process was "exciting, exhausting and thrilling all in one".

It was controversial, too, with Goldman Sachs criticised for under-pricing the offering, which did not raise any new money and resulted in just 15pc of the existing stock changing hands.

However, Yu defends the pricing, saying: "It was up to the market to set the price. We believe the flotation is really the start of a new chapter for us. I believe we can grow faster as a public company than as a private company."

What about all the disclosures in the prospectus, not least the one about his health? Can he give any more details?

"I think you've seen it all in there," he says. "Thanks for asking about it but I feel great. We decided that in the interests of transparency we should put something in but I feel fine. I wouldn't have gone through this process if I wasn't."

Yu, an American who has been with Betfair since 2001 – working his way up from chief technology officer to chief operating officer and then taking over as chief executive in 2005 – has lots on his plate.

Broker KBC Peel Hunt believes Betfair can increase its earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (Ebitda) by a compound 25pc over three years.

However, net gaming revenues from Betfair's core business slowed to 7pc in the year to April 2010, or about 5pc when stripping out interest on client funds. Could Betfair's low-risk model also make it a low-growth utility?

"I must admit I've never heard that," says Yu. "I think there's tremendous growth. There's so much headroom in the market for growth that I think being called a utility is quite a few years away."

He sees continued growth in the global online gambling and betting market, particularly in sports betting, where Betfair's revenue grew 12pc last year, with 970,000 new registrations and 441,000 new customers.

There's also potential for cross-selling of other gambling products, such as online poker and casino, and there are new channels for customers to place bets, with iPhone, iPad and BlackBerry apps.

"Now you can sit at Starbucks and be using your mobile phone to bet," says Yu. "We can give you an opportunity to bet any time, anywhere and in any place."

To demonstrate, his communications chief logs on to Betfair on her iPhone and bets on a horse called Point North in the 4.50 at Nottingham at odds of 8-5. The process takes less than a minute.

The big problem is further expansion overseas, where half of Betfair's revenues come from.

"Ironically, the biggest four betting countries in the world – the US, China, India and Japan – are restricted in some form," says Yu.

"Obviously we hope those markets will open up over time but today you can't bet online legally so we don't operate there."

Betfair operates in the US only through TVG, a 10-year-old online horse-betting company that operates pool betting similar to Britain's Tote in 18 US states and was acquired for $50m (￡31m) last year.

However, Yu believes the US is finally changing, pointing to California's approval of a bill that will allow the state's residents to use a betting exchange for horseracing from May 2012.

He wants to expand TVG into other states and also launch a Betfair exchange into California.

"We hope the US will continue to liberalise," he says. "The challenge with the gaming industry is the rate of regulatory change. Governments work to different timetables. It's impossible to predict when different markets will open.

"In the long-run, regulation of gaming makes sense. It makes more sense than prohibition. It should be licensed, it should be taxed.

"It may take years to get there and it may happen at different times but I'm encouraged because it's going in the right direction."

Yu is also excited about LMAX, Betfair's new contracts for difference (CFDs) online trading exchange, which launched last week after a ￡25m investment. He believes there will be opportunities to expand further into financial trading.

"We hope LMAX can be as disruptive as Betfair," he says. "We're creating a marketplace where retail customers can come together and trade into the exchange directly without having to go through a market maker. It's taking out one link in the chain. We brought a fundamentally different way of allowing people to bet that was more efficient and we're trying to do the same in financial trading."

Other issues are dominating the headlines, however. Alongside the rest of Britain's bookmakers, Betfair has been wrangling over the levy amounting to 10pc of gross profits on UK horseracing that's paid to the sport in Britain. The company has also lobbied the Department for Culture, Media and Sport's review of the regulation of remote gambling.

Online betting companies based in Britain pay a gross profits tax of 15pc, which has prompted online bookmakers, including Ladbrokes and William Hill, to move their online betting operations to offshore tax havens. Yu feels Betfair is penalised for staying in the UK, where it has 1,000 of its 2,000 staff.

"What we have to consider is that many others have gone offshore and we don't think that is a fair and level playing field right now," he says.

"Last year, we paid about ￡20m in gross tax on our profits, so we're making a significant contribution back into the UK. We think it should be fair and commercially competitive, and right now I don't believe it is."

Does he want a special deal or a reduced rate? "Not necessarily," he continues. "What we're saying is that there must be a way that by being an onshore business and paying tax we would be entitled to do things in a way that makes it fair for us.

"It might be around advertising. Maybe one thing might be that you need to be licensed in the UK and paying tax if you want to advertise in the media or do other things here in the UK.

"We're very happy to be licensed and to pay sensible tax but if we don't see movement we'd have to continually consider what's right for the business over the long term."

Yu has spent his career in technology, graduating from Stanford University in California with a computer science masters and then working in a host of internet companies, including AltaVista, which brought him to the UK as vice-president for engineering in its e-commerce and international division. His stint in Britain ended after a year but Yu stayed, joining fledgling online betting firm Flutter. Within three months, Flutter announced a merger with Betfair and Yu became chief technology officer of the combined operation.

"There are huge technical demands in what we do," he says. "That's what appealed to me as a technologist. It looks very easy to the consumer but what goes on behind the scenes is hugely complicated."

Does he bet himself? "I do. I try my hand with the horses," he says. "I can't say I'm an expert at it but I love sports. The thing about working at Betfair is if you love sports there's something happening all the time."

There certainly is. After our interview, I check the racing results. Point North came in a winner and Betfair's communications chief won ￡8.10 with her ￡5 bet.

That sort of return that will keep the company's new shareholders happy.

Yu will be hoping Betfair can continue to produce it.

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