close video With all the businesses leaving San Francisco, ‘you’re not going to have a city left’: David Lee
Tacorea restaurant owner David Lee describes being mentally drained by the crime wave, and says he hasn’t received victim help from San Francisco leadership.
One of the largest publicly traded real estate investment trusts in the U.S. plans to close two of San Francisco's major downtown hotels, saying the city's streets are unsafe and expressing doubts about the area's ability to recover.
Park Hotels & Resorts Inc. announced this week that it stopped making payments on a $725 million loan that secured both its 1,921-room Hilton San Francisco Union Square and 1,024-room Parc 55 San Francisco properties and expects to remove them from its portfolio, citing several "major challenges" in the California city.
A sign on the exterior of the Hilton San Francisco Union Square on Tuesday. (Justin Sullivan / Getty Images) Ticker Security Last Change Change % PK PARK HOTELS & RESORTS INC. 14.36 +0.21 +1.52%
"This past week we made the very difficult, but necessary decision to stop debt service payments on our San Francisco CMBS loan," Park Hotels CEO Thomas J. Baltimore Jr. said in a statement. "After much thought and consideration, we believe it is in the best interest for Park’s stockholders to materially reduce our current exposure to the San Francisco market."
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"Now more than ever, we believe San Francisco’s path to recovery remains clouded and elongated by major challenges — both old and new: record high office vacancy; concerns over street conditions; lower return to office than peer cities; and a weaker than expected citywide convention calendar through 2027 that will negatively impact business and leisure demand and will likely significantly reduce compression in the city for the foreseeable future," Baltimore said.
A view of the Parc 55 by Hilton Hotel in San Francisco on Tuesday. (Justin Sullivan / Getty Images)
In its June investor presentation, Park Hotels cited "on-going concerns over safety and security" as part of its rationale for giving up on the two prominent San Francisco hotels, and said the move would save $30 million a year in interest payments and some $200 million in maintenance expenses over the next five years.
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All told, Park operates 46 hotels and resorts mostly located in city centers and resort locations, including the New York Hilton Midtown, the Hyatt Regency in Boston, the Hilton Hawaiian Village Waikiki Beach Resort in Honolulu and the Orlando Waldorf Astoria in Orlando, Florida.
Homeless people gather in an encampment in the Tenderloin district of downtown San Francisco on Feb. 24, 2022. (Gary Coronado/Los Angeles Times via / Getty Images)
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Park's departure comes amid a growing exodus of retailers fleeing downtown San Francisco for various reasons as the city continues to struggle with retail theft, homelessness and a raging drug crisis.
People were unable to access money overnight after the issue struck on what was payday for many British workers.
Hundreds of customers reportedly claim they are experiencing interrupted services and missing funds, with some alleging they have had no access to their cash for nearly 24 hours.
David Marsh and his wife, from Cumbria, told Sky News they’ve been experiencing problems accessing their money while on holiday in Australia to celebrate their marriage.
“I’m unable to receive money for my honeymoon into my current account or use my current account to clear my credit card before departing,” he said.
“My message to Barclays is: I’ve been a current account holder with Barclays since 1986. The day I return to the UK, I will be moving my current account to another provider and leaving them.”
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What has Barclays said?
Barclays has apologised to customers, saying the company is facing ongoing technical issues.
It warned that some people may see an outdated balance, and payments made or received may not show.
“We will ensure that no customer is left out of pocket,” the bank said in a statement on Saturday.
Mum ‘unable to buy milk’
A mother claimed she was unable to buy milk for her baby due to the IT glitch.
“My four-month-old is out of milk powder and screaming for a feed and I still haven’t been paid,” she said.
She added: “I’ve been in tears for hours.”
‘Money never arrived in my account’
Karen Bannister, 52, from Wakefield, West Yorkshire, told Sky News: “I had transferred all my money into Barclays to cover paying for gas, electric, rent, petrol, food etc. The money never arrived in my Barclays account.
She added: “My card got declined at the supermarket which was completely embarrassing and by 9pm I was without heating because my gas had run out.”
“Yesterday was awful. Barclays need to pay compensation to those affected. People were without salary and some couldn’t pay their tax before the deadline.
“Following this, I’m leaving Barclays – and I’ve been a customer for 40 years.”
Frustrated customers have also been reaching out to Barclays support via social media.
“Due to you Barclays I’m left without money had a food shop due for delivery this morning which now will get cancelled, leave my four kids with no food it’s a joke as (it is) my money,” one X user claimed.
Another added: “How can I eat and keep warm if I can’t get to my funds?”
A third person claimed: “Well I’ve just had to put all my shopping back in Tesco never been so embarrassed in my life .. as can’t access my own money.”
The Down Detector tracker has shown more than 1,600 reports of outages for Barclays banking services since Friday.
In its statement on Saturday, Barclays said: “We’re incredibly sorry for the ongoing technical issues that are impacting our customers’ accounts.
“Some may see an outdated balance, and payments made or received may not show.
“We’re working hard to fix this issue, and customers should not try to make the payment again.”
Wall Street giants are betting on the projected $30 trillion RWA tokenization market as the industry sees explosive growth and widespread adoption across TradFi institutions.
Donald Trump has said “many” ISIS terrorists have been killed in caves by US airstrikes he ordered this morning.
Posting on his social media site Truth Social, the US president said: “This morning I ordered precision Military air strikes on the Senior ISIS Attack Planner and other terrorists he recruited and led in Somalia.
“These killers, who we found hiding in caves, threatened the United States and our Allies.
“The strikes destroyed the caves they live in, and killed many terrorists without, in any way, harming civilians.”
Mr Trump did not name any of the people targeted in the strikes or give further details about the location.
He said the US military had targeted the attack planner for years, but former president Joe Biden “and his cronies wouldn’t act quickly enough to get the job done”.
“I did! The message to ISIS and all others who would attack Americans is that “WE WILL FIND YOU, AND WE WILL KILL YOU!”
US special forces killed a senior ISIS leader and 10 other militants in a raid on a mountain cave complex in a remote part of northern Somalia in 2023, in an operation ordered by Mr Biden.
This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly.