Invista Real Estate Investment Management has sold a mixed-use property on Conduit Street to an investor from abroad. The buildings is located in the prestigious area of Mayfair in the West End of
London. The building was allegedly sold well above the valuation that was made earlier in the year. The asking price was circa £34m.
According to officebroker.com enquiry data, the amount of leads for one man offices has increased 42% in the first seven months of 2009, compared with 2008. As the report points out, this is more evidence if it were needed that the recession has created burgeoning a number of new entrepreneurs, many of which have used their redundancy money to start their own company. And with office space prices rock bottom, there is a huge incentive for people to go it alone.
The availability of office space in the UK is set to rise this year according to commercial property experts. Because of the number of speculative developments that are nearing completion is rising, the amount of new stock on the market will increase. As demand is weak, this will cause oversupply, suppressing rents.
Bruntwood have launched the “Eco Cities Initiative for Sustainable Cities” in conjunction with the University of Manchester. The company will use office buildings as ‘living laboratories’ for environmental and climate testing. Data from the Forestry Commission predicts that the temperature in Manchester in 2080 will be similar to that of Naples. This means that offices in the city centre could reach 20 degrees C. For those who live in Manchester, a city that in synonymous with rainfall, this seems a long way off.
Regus say that City workers that have been made redundant are responsible for a boost in City office occupancy as they set up their own companies. CEO Mark Dixon says that occupancy levels at Regus offices in the City are running at 90% – an incredible achievement given the slump in demand for office space in
London. “We thought the City would be much weaker, but it’s a dynamic place,†Dixon said. “Many people are bouncing back with their own niche business ideas.â€
Knowing where to locate as a small businesses can, in some instances, be crucial in determining the success of the company. For some companies location will of course be more important than for others, but most companies will find there are benefits and drawbacks from the location they eventually settle in. With the recession heaping additional financial pressure on SME’s, cost has come to play an increasing role in decision making. Some other factors that companies consider are..
UK companies are turning away from green policies labeling them as “no use” in the recession. The data which has been disclosed from NetRegs.gov.uk found that just 20% of SME’s plan to follow green policies in the next 12 months. Of the 7,000 companies that they surveyed, there was a drop of three quarters of companies that had a environment management system.
Blackrock, the American financial group will cut its share in Regus from 90.8m to 46.1m. Since February 2007 the share price has fallen nearly 50% to 80½p. Regus have benefited from companies needing to downsize office space or those uncertain about their future who now require a flexible workspace solution. Last year their profits rose 25pc to £149.2m, despite a the cost per workstation going down.
Regus entered the fledgling Indian office space market back in 2004. Following on from successes in major cities such as Mumbai, the company plan to roll out a number of business centers in the “Tier 2″ areas of India. Madhusudan Thakur, who works for Regus in India said that the company has 21 centers in 9 cities in India including Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata and Chennai. Now the company will build centres in places such as Coimbatore, Puducheery, Bhubaneshwar, Raipur, Ranchi and Thanjavur.
SME’s need to embrace e-marketing and incorporate it as a long term strategy, according a leading online marketing publisher. According to the report, SME’s are finding that online marketing can be much more beneficial as well as being easier to measure in terms on return on investment. Online marketing needs to be joined up with any offline marketing efforts, to create a synergy that will maximize impact.
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