A restructuring of its UK business caused serviced office provider Regus to incur a £15.8m cost in the six months ended 30 June.
The group, which this morning reported an 7.5% dip in turnover to £515.5m in the first six months of the year, said it that it had incurred the cost due to a combination of asset writedowns, dilapidations, legal and professional fees, relocation and reorganisation costs and ancillary closure costs.
The writedowns led the company to record a £6.1m loss, compared with a profit of £69m in 2009.
Regus, which makes most of its money in the Americas and EMEA region, said that conditions in the UK had been extremely challenging.
Turnover in the UK totalled £88.9m – downy by 9.7% on the same period in 2009. Occupancy slipped to 74% to 78%.
Chief executive Mark Dixon said: “Looking ahead we will continue to address the performance of our loss-making centres in the UK.
“Like many other companies with operations in the UK, we have been seeking to renegotiate a number of leases where critical to improving a centre’s performance and where historic rent was not reflective of current market conditions.”
Dixon said that the group’s restructuring actions had enabled it to save around £1m a month.
He added: “We remain committed to our strategy of recovering our margin in existing centres, opening new centres on attractive deals and continuing to focus on efficiency savings.
“With the increasing trend of companies and individuals toward flexible working, we are well placed as the market leader and will use our strong cash position to take advantage of this compelling growth opportunity.”
samantha.mcclary@estatesgazette.com
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