But negotiations on price are set to go down to the wire, as Lazard was expected to go back to the bidders last night to demand a further rise in price. The final value of the papers looks as if it could top £700m.
The board of Hollinger International is set to meet today to discuss Lazard’s conclusions on the bids put forward by the Barclay brothers, the two entrepreneurs who own the Ritz hotels and the Scotsman group, and 3i, the private equity firm backed by the US media investment group VSS.The meeting follows an intense weekend of legal wrangling by both bid teams on the technical aspects of their offers. Lazard, the investment bank running the auction for the Telegraph group, is set to give its recommendation on who should win control of the newspapers to the board of Hollinger International today, but not before it turns the final screws on the bidders to eke out a higher price. “It’s looking increasingly like a steady and orderly slowdown – the so-called ’soft landing’ that some people have said is not possible.”Last week Mervyn King, the Governor of the Bank of England, stunned the housing industry with a warning that the current level of house prices might be unsustainable.. The number of properties put up for sale rose by 10 per cent, easing the supply shortages that have helped drive up prices over the last five years.Rightmove, which claims to cover almost half of all homes for sale, said it now had a record 370,000 properties on its site.Mr Shipside moved to calm fears the UK was headed for a repeat of the 1990s property price crash that left millions with mortgages worth more than their homes. A drop of £693 may not be huge but if it’s a sign of what’s to come, it could be very significant.”The fall in prices was matched by a sudden jump in the number of sellers, which could indicate a rush by homeowners to sell up before any slump in prices. “We are seeing the long-expected slowdown in the market,” he said.

Miles Shipside, Rightmove’s commercial director, said: “Over the month prices are up again, but close analysis provides evidence that the market may have turned The impact of four rate rises is beginning to bite. The national estate agents’ organisation last week reported a 25 per cent slump in new buyer inquiries over the spring.Rightmove said the one-week fall failed to offset a strong 3 per cent rise in asking prices in the four weeks prior to the week of the rate decision. “This month sees the first clear, quantifiable sign of a slowdown in house prices,” said the company, which measures 80,000 house prices every week.It said the average asking price of properties for sale fell by £683, or 0.4 per cent, in the week to 12 June, the only weekly fall this year. Prices in the capital fell 1.6 per cent, and the South 0.7 per cent, on the week.The figures will be seen as the latest sign the property market is cooling.

The fall was driven by price cuts in Greater London and the south-eastof England. House prices have suffered their first fall this year after this month’s increase in interest rates, according to a snapshot survey of the property market published today.
Vendors slashed the asking prices of their homes in the week that the Bank of England ordered its quarter-point rise, the property website Rightmove said. Since then they have agreed to a joint test ban, which they renewed yesterday.India has committed itself to no-first-use of nuclear weapons; Pakistan, which has fewer conventional arms, has not.There is also a fear that Islamic militants might get their hands on Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal – another reason to have a hotline.. Mr Vajpayee lost last month’s Indian elections, but there is no popular opposition to the rapprochement with Pakistan that has made war seem a less likely prospect now than in 2002.The two sides publicly announced their nuclear capabilities by staging nuclear tests in 1998. In 2002, after India accused Pakistan of being behind a militant attack on the parliament building in Delhi in December 2001, Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf and Mr Vajpayee engaged in a dangerous game of brinkmanship, with Mr Musharraf threatening to use any means at his disposal to protect Pakistan.But the two men initiated peace talks last year. The Dr Strangelove scenario, in which an unauthorised or accidental firing of a missile starts a nuclear war, has been a real danger.Until yesterday’s agreement there was no hotline between the Indian and Pakistani governments of the sort set up between the US and the Soviet Union during the Cold War.The only hotline between Pakistan and India was between the senior commands of the two countries’ militaries.