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Buy.Cranswick is not quite ready for consumptionCranswick has proved a swine of an investment over the past 18 months. This means that Land Securities assets are being driven up in price, and the shares are still in demand. However, there are signs of life in the West End office market.At 1,078p, Land Securities sits at less of a discount to its asset value than many in the sector, but the broader picture is that demand for property investments has continued to increase. This is far better than we expected in November, when we advised avoiding the shares. It is the out-of-town retail parks that are rising fastest in value. In a trend highlighted by Dixons last month, when it closed hundreds of high street stores, the warehouses are now being divided into smaller units and attracting names such as Boots and Next.Rental increases from the office portfolio will have to wait, at least in the City, where the downturn has been worst. Time has not yet been called on the shares, so hold on to your place at the bar.Land Securities buoyed by shoppers’ spree Land Securities is one of the UK’s biggest landlords.

Sir Alan, who has a controlling stake in Tottenham Hotspur, will fire one of them each week before rewarding the winner with a one-year contract at either Amstrad or Viglen, the computer company he also owns.Sir Alan, one of Britain’s 50 richest men, with an estimated £700m fortune, started out selling aerials, car radios and amplifiers to shops in London’s Tottenham Court Road. He formed Amstrad, worth £1.4bn at its technology boom-inspired peak, in 1968. Other candidates to front The Apprentice included Sir Richard Branson and Stelios Haji-Ioannou.. Soaring oil prices look set to deliver a sharp increase in inflation, as official figures yesterday revealed the first acceleration in living costs for four months. Another threat is a possible smoking ban, although this, if introduced, would be phased in over a number of years.At 578p, one of the biggest FTSE 100 movers yesterday, Enterprise is trading on 13 times forward earnings. This is a worthy, highly cash generative stock about to be turbocharged by the acquisition of Unique.

That is dearer than Punch Taverns, but the quality of Enterprise’s pub estate justifies the premium. In total, interim group profits were up 16 per cent.But tenanted pub estates do now have their own threat on the horizon. A committee of MPs has begun an investigation into the arrangements between landlords and pub companies to ensure pub tenants are not being ripped off. It took control of the 4,000 Unique pubs in March, adding to its existing 5,000, and the cash from these has yet to start rolling in. While Enterprise points to the fact that lease arrangements have been exonerated by the Office of Fair Trading and by British and European courts, it is, nonetheless, a cloud over the stock and may stall its progress until the investigation is concluded. Wetherspoon, Regent Inns and Eldridge Pope are all suffering a pretty bad hangover after over-supplying the market.Enterprise, on the other hand, can now afford to bed down its acquisition of Unique pubs. That it has produced 15 per cent earnings growth in the past six months without Unique, and that profits in its existing pubs were up an average of 9 per cent, is a testament to the strength of Enterprise’s estate.