February 2, 2018 | less than a minute read

A Small Bump in the Road for Serviced Offices?

Maples Teesdale

It will be interesting to see whether Brookfield and Onex's decision not to buy IWG (formerly Regus) marks the beginning of a cooling of interest in the serviced office market. As businesses increasingly demand flexibility this seems unlikely and it will be interesting to see if either Brookfield, Onex or another big player in the market make a move to acquire another large serviced office provider.

Shares in the world’s biggest flexible office firm, IWG, fell Thursday afternoon after a joint venture between Brookfield and Onex said they would not be making a bid for the company. London-listed IWG's shares fell 16%, wiping around £550M ($800M) from the value of the business, which had a market capitalisation of around £2B ($2.9B) at the close of trading. IWG, previously called Regus, said in December that Brookfield and Onex had made an indicative proposal ahead of a formal bid. Ultimately no bid was forthcoming, with reports having indicated that the duo were weighing an offer of around $3.7B for IWG.