Beleaguered department store BHS goes into administration + MORE Apr 25th

Young would-be homeowners are feeling the chill. For more than half a decade, these potential property-owners and family-makers have been frozen out of the city of Vancouver. But that freeze due to unaffordable housing doesn’t stop at Boundary Road. Homebuyers are struggling to find affordable housing on the North Shore, in Richmond, in Burnaby even as far as Langley. 
In my last post, I highlight eight distinct factors that have helped push housing prices up in metro Vancouver and across the lower mainland. But unaffordable homeownership isn’t the only casualty. Here are four additional fallouts from Vancouver’s messed up real estate market.
Fallout #1: You lose your deposit money!
In the last 12 months, the average cost of a single-family detached home, in Vancouver, jumped past the $1 million mark. Yes. I said average and $1 million in the same sentence. Mind-boggling, I know. Meanwhile the median incomes for Vancouverites have barely budged in the last few decades…

LONDON – The troubled British department store chain BHS has called in administrators after failing to secure a rescue package, putting 11,000 jobs are at risk.
A fixture on Britain’s high streets, the firm has suffered from a chronic lack of investment recently. It has debts of more than 1.3 billion pounds ($1.8 billion), including a pension fund deficit of 571 million pounds.
Some 164 stories are threatened with closure in the biggest retail failure since Woolworths collapsed in 2008,
Retail magnate Philip Green bought the chain for 200 million pounds in 2000, but sold it last year for just a pound after failing to turn it around.
Administrators Duff & Phelps said in a statement Monday that the group will “continue to trade as usual” while a deal is sought.
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Embattled drugmaker Valeant Pharmaceuticals has chosen Perrigo Co. CEO Joseph C. Papa to become its new CEO, replacing J. Michael Pearson.
Valeant said Monday that the 60-year-old executive will start early next month.
The Wall Street Journal reported last week that Valeant was finalizing a contract with Papa.
Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc. said last month that Pearson was leaving but would stay until his replacement is hired.
Pearson is scheduled to testify later this week before a Senate committee investigating the causes of soaring prescription medicine prices.
Valeant’s stock jumped more than 3 per cent in morning trading Monday. The stock has plunged from all-time high prices it hit last year, as the Canadian drugmaker dealt with headaches like rising debt levels and federal probes into its accounting and business practices.
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RIYADH, Saudi Arabia – Saudi King Salman says the kingdom’s Cabinet has approved a plan laying out reform priorities for the next decade and a half.
The monarch announced the approval for the “Vision 2030” plan in a short televised announcement on Monday in which he called on Saudis to work together ensure its success.
The king’s son, Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, spelled out some details of the program in a pre-recorded interview aired shortly after the announcement on Saudi-owned broadcaster Al-Arabiya.
He says a partial initial public offering of the state-owned oil company Saudi Aramco is part of the reform plan to turn the economy around from reliance on oil to being investment-driven.
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Plan aims to make Saudi global investment power; Five per cent of Aramco to be sold