Eric Schmidt, ex-Google CEO, purchases a luxury London mansion for £42 million

Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt has purchased a mansion in Holland Park for nearly £42 million, joining a string of significant transactions in London’s prime real estate markets.

As reported by the Financial Times, Schmidt, who led Google from 2001 to 2011, acquired a two-level stucco apartment in west London last May.

The Grade II listed building, as per official Land Registry records, includes a MEWS house at the back and was last sold in 2022 for £36.2 million. This sale follows other notable deals in London’s real estate market, including the recent £139 million sale of a 40-bedroom mansion in Regent Park.

Schmidt, now planning to rent out the property, is part of a trend where wealthy Americans are investing in luxury London real estate. In 2020, Americans surpassed Chinese buyers in the capital, accounting for 9.3% of foreign buyers compared to 5.6% in 2019, according to Knight Frank.

The interest in British citizenship among Americans has also seen a sharp increase, with over 6,100 US citizens applying for UK citizenship – a 26% rise from 2023 and the highest number since data collection began in 2004.

While there have been large transactions at the top end of the London market, overall activity has slowed. In 2021, there were 443 London homes sold for over £5 million, up from 308 in 2019 pre-pandemic levels, as per Savilles.

London’s capital price growth has been modest, recording its lowest annual price growth in the UK at 1.9% compared to the national rate of 3.9% in February. Northern Ireland saw the highest growth at 13.5%, followed by Scotland at 3.9% and Wales at 3.6%. London remains the most expensive location to buy a home, with an average price of £529,369.

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A representative for Schmidt declined to comment. A spokesperson informed the FT: “Eric is making investments in luxury real estate properties worldwide.”

Source: www.theguardian.com

Amazon purchases UK’s largest electric truck to decrease carbon footprint

Amazon is set to deploy nearly 150 electric heavy goods vehicles in the UK to reduce carbon emissions from its delivery operations. The company has purchased over 140 electric Mercedes-Benz HGVs and eight Volvo trucks, marking the UK’s largest order for electric trucks. These vehicles will join Amazon’s fleet over the next 18 months, increasing its current electric HGV fleet from nine vehicles.

The switch to electric logistics is being supported by government funding under the Zero Emission HGV and Infrastructure Demonstrator Program (ZEHID). Amazon plans to set up fast-charging points across its UK network to keep its electric trucks operational.

Amazon’s investment in green transport is part of a £300m initiative announced in 2022 to increase its electric HGV fleet to 700 vehicles by 2025. However, challenges such as a lack of public infrastructure, high costs, and range concerns are hindering the industry-wide transition to electric HGVs.

Amazon Logistics European vice president Nicola Fyfe stated that the company’s commitment to electric vehicles aligns with its goal of achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2040. The move includes large-scale deliveries by rail and foot in city centers, expanding Amazon’s green delivery options.

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Amazon’s shift towards electric vehicles represents a significant step in its sustainability efforts and commitment to reducing its environmental impact.

Source: www.theguardian.com

Okta Purchases Security Firm Spera for Over $100 Million

Identity and access management company Okta acquires security company Spera.

According to Okta, the Spera acquisition is expected to close during the fiscal first quarter, beginning in early February, and will build on Okta’s existing identity threat detection and response (ITDR) capabilities and provide customers with the system management and technology to improve the identification of personal information, detect and remediate risks.

Terms of the agreement were not disclosed, but Calcalist report Okta is paying Spera approximately $100 million to $130 million, depending on milestones.

“As a leading identity partner, we remain committed to providing our customers with the tools and knowledge they need in an increasingly challenging environment, and we look forward to seeing how Spera Security enhances our ITDR efforts to help our customers. We’re excited to deliver safer outcomes.” Post published this morning on Okta blog To read.

Spera, which my colleague Frederic has covered previously, was co-founded several years ago by entrepreneurs Dole Fredel and Ariel Kadicevic. Based in Palo Alto and Tel Aviv, the platform provides tools to identify silos across Software-as-a-Service and infrastructure apps, discover vulnerabilities across user populations, and address regulatory, attack vector, and industry challenges. Helps prioritize security issues based on best practices.

As Frederick said in the interview, services like Spera also serve a purpose beyond security, helping businesses reduce licensing costs by helping them find dormant accounts that can be turned off.

Spera, which has about 25 employees, had raised $10 million before acquiring Okta. Investors included YL Ventures and angel investors from tech giants like Google, Palo Alto Networks, Akamai, and Zendesk.

Okta believes Spera will enable customers to better assess the identity infrastructure and security posture of their apps and services, helping to attract new customers to the Okta platform.company quote Gartner research suggests that by 2026, 90% of organizations will have some kind of embedded ITDR strategy, compared to the current rate of 5% to 20%.

“With Spera Security, we provide our customers with richer insights and technology to better manage their identity security posture and quickly identify, detect, and remediate risks,” the blog post continues. “They can take advantage of specific suggestions from Spera Security, such as identifying SSO. [single sign-on] or M.F.A. [multifactor authentication] Improve your security posture and remediate potential threat vectors before they become critical by excluding privileged and service accounts. ”

Okta’s acquisition of Spera comes after Okta acquired the a16z-backed password manager Uno and after a rosy fiscal quarter for Okta. 6 billion dollar company beat Wall Street’s expectations for the fourth quarter suggest that publicly traded companies are on the right track, at least in the eyes of shareholders.

Source: techcrunch.com