I had a most interesting breakfast meeting last week with my dear friend Iain Napier, the main man at housebuilder Taylor Woodrow.
Napier has lost a bit of weight since I last saw him, but he remains hungry for acquisitions, despite still digesting the £480m purchase of Wilson Connolly last year.

He said that the company has the financial muscle to make a few deals to strengthen the company's land position.

Napier also told me an amusing tale of the sale of St Katharine's Estate in central London for £166.3m and the adjoining K2 development for £117m. His finance director, apparently, had told Napier for months that the second any potential sale of St Kat's was announced the housebuilder's share price would rocket, as the City didn't understand why Taywood kept hold of the property. As it turned out, as soon as the announcement was made on a cold Friday afternoon in February the share price was static …

Unlike last week. Its shares took a bit of a battering, along with all the other housebuilders feeling the impact of recent hammerblows from the chaps and chapettes in the City, who believe that the market is on the verge of collapse. Taywood's price slipped 7% to struggle home at 258.75p by close of play Friday.

Still, some of Taywood's rivals had it worse. Countryside fell 7.3% to 200.5p and Berkeley saw 7.8% wiped off its shares to finish at 907p.

Speedy Hire’s results come out in a fortnight. Expect good ‘uns

Hunch of the week

Couldn't believe this one – AuketT actually had a dramatic week in terms of its share price. I say that this is quite a shock, because the UK's only listed architect is remarkable for having a paltry share price that seems to be fairly illiquid.

Yet last week the shares lost a pretty chunky 12.9% to end at 3.5p. This could well be the result of the market slowly coming to terms with the management changes at the group, which occurred in the wake of a recent extraordinary general meeting called by its major shareholder and now joint chairman and chief executive, Jose Luis Ripoll.

As you know, dear reader, I don't like to be nasty but … for heaven's sake, Jarvis, sort it out! Another dire week, with the beleaguered group's price dropping 4.1% to 87.75p. Just when I think it can't possibly fall any lower, it goes and proves me wrong.

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