IWG, the world’s largest supplier of serviced workplace house, reported file income final yr after cashing in on the recognition of hybrid working.

Mark Dixon, the property trade veteran and IWG’s founder and chief government, believes that head places of work have gotten “both useless or a lot smaller” now that working from house has develop into extra standard.

“[Hybrid working] is a kind of issues the place everyone seems to be a winner, until you’re an actual property investor with places of work in downtown areas,” Dixon, 63, mentioned. “It’s a a lot greener final result, decrease prices for firms and a lot better for folks.”

He mentioned these workplace house owners have turned to IWG, previously often called Regus, to assist prepared their buildings for versatile working. IWG has seen “fast development” in demand for what it calls capital-light contracts, the place landlords hand over their buildings and ask IWG to run them as serviced places of work.

“If you happen to’re a landlord, you’re taking a look at a very new panorama, the place the tenants you used to have aren’t there any extra, so that you’re on the lookout for new concepts,” Dixon defined. “They realise that [businesses] are shifting to hybrid working, in order that they name us and ask us to place their property on the platform and we fill it up for them and create income.”

Final yr, IWG signed 462 such contracts and it’s on monitor to signal extra this yr. Hybrid working has additionally helped IWG to enroll extra occupiers, a few of which have begun to ditch their long-term leases of total flooring and buildings and exchange them with shorter, extra versatile offers as an alternative. Occupancy inside IWG’s places of work has risen to 73.5 per cent from 68.2 per cent a yr in the past.

Due to that, along with some value will increase to cowl rising prices, IWG generated file revenues of £3.1 billion in 2022, a 24 per cent enhance on the £2.5 billion it turned over in 2021.

The group, which has about 3,400 centres in 120 nations, was based by Dixon in 1989 when he opened his first workplace in Brussels. He stays the corporate’s largest shareholder, with a 28.6 per cent stake value about £550 million.

IWG swung to an working revenue of £147 million, versus an working lack of £87 million within the earlier yr. Nevertheless, on a statutory foundation, the corporate fell to a pre-tax lack of £105 million, down from £259 million in 2021.

That partly mirrored elevated finance prices as rates of interest spiralled greater, in addition to additional funding into Worka, a brand new workspace reserving app that IWG is constructing out after having merged its digital property with the Immediate Group this time final yr. There was some discuss final autumn that personal fairness corporations had been eyeing up Worka. IWG confirmed that it was “persevering with plans to guage lowering its possession stake”.

Trying forward, Dixon mentioned that “momentum continues going into 2023”, with income, working earnings, occupancy and pricing all selecting up in the direction of the top of final yr.

IWG shares rose 3¾p, or 2 per cent, to 192p yesterday, valuing the enterprise at near £2 billion.