Rent-an-office firm Regus prospers amid recession

21 March 2009

Office space rental firm Regus said today that its profits rose 25 per cent last year as more companies rented out its space rather than buying new premises. Regus is one of the few real estate firms to buck the market gloom, thanks to new cost-saving services it has started offering cash-strapped clients.

The company reported a pre-tax profit £149.2 million, up from £119.4 million a year earlier. Its revenues also rose 25 per cent to £1.08 billion. It increased its dividend to 1.8 pence per share, up from 1p last year.

Regus said average occupancy of its workplaces increased as firms looked to reduce their office costs and rent space during the recession. "2008 was another successful year for Regus delivering a fifth consecutive year of record performance," said chief executive officer Mark Dixon.

The company said in a statement that it opened 112 new centres in 2008, and increased the number of available workstations to 153,260. Revenues increased 6.7 per cent to £222m in the UK, where it has 131 work centres.

In Asia, revenues rose 55.7 per cent to £121 million as it continued to open new centres in places like Pakistan and Taiwan. Dixon said the company was attracting new customers who are "looking to reduce their office costs and gain flexibility in an increasingly challenging marketplace".

Regus, which offers ready-to-use offices for rental periods that are as short as half a day, has introduced even cheaper options. "Our newly introduced portfolio of recession-busting products is attracting many new customers who are looking to reduce their office costs and gain flexibility in an increasingly challenging marketplace," Dixon said.