Monday newspaper round-up: House prices, gas network, Scottish power

(Sharecast News) - UK house prices are on track to beat forecasts of a decline in 2024, a leading estate agent has said, as a mortgage pricing war and expectations of Bank of England interest rate cuts rekindle the property market. After a year of sustained price falls in 2023, the global property consultancy Knight Frank said it was updating its forecast for UK house prices to rise by 3% in 2024, up from an earlier estimate of a 4% drop. - Guardian The world's five richest men have more than doubled their fortunes to $869bn (£681.5bn) since 2020, while the world's poorest 60% - almost 5 billion people - have lost money. The details come in a report by Oxfam as the world's richest people gather from Monday in Davos, Switzerland, for the annual World Economic Forum meeting of political leaders, corporate executives and the super-rich. - Guardian

Britain's sprawling gas network is still reliant on a fleet of ageing aircraft engines, some stripped from 1960s RAF Lightning fighter jets, it has emerged. Jon Butterworth, chief executive of National Gas, said many of the engines that drive gas through the system date back decades, some to the Cold War, and now need millions of pounds spent on replacing them. - Telegraph

The billionaire Tory donor Alan Howard shared a £268m pay out from his hedge fund last year as bets on interest rates reaped dividends for the company. The pay out by Brevan Howard Asset Management was more than three times the £82m shared a year earlier, company filings showed and the biggest since 2019 when £440m was paid out to partners. - Telegraph

Scottish Power will spend a record amount on upgrading ageing electricity transmission lines that will allow more renewable energy to be transported south of the border from Scotland. The ten-year investment plan is the first in an expected wave of spending set to be announced this year by the three big operators of Britain's power lines, seen as vital if the country is to meet a target of net-zero emissions by 2050. - The Times