Serviced Office Group plc (AIM: SVO)

Serviced Office Group meets growing demand for project space

Serviced Office Group plc (“SVO” or the “Group”) is an AIM-listed provider of flexible office space and IT solutions, which operates 23 business centres, predominantly in London and the South East

Serviced Office Group plc (“SVO”) reports today that demand for project space within its UK business centre portfolio continues to grow, with a series of success stories over the past few months. British Telecommunications, for example, has taken occupation of 3,000 square feet of project space with SVO at its newly-opened 10 Lower Thames Street EC3 location, the headquarters of Express Newspapers.

Commenting on the success of this new project win, Sales Director, Andrew Butler, said:

“BT is a key partner of ours across our UK portfolio and came to us with an urgent need for space within the Lower Thames Street building. Responding quickly, we negotiated with the team at Express Newspapers and, having completed terms, we promptly delivered a bespoke managed solution for the BT team, allowing them to work alongside their neighbouring business at You View.

“The turnaround from initial discussions to being able to sit down and work was less than four weeks. Being able to act quickly and deliver the solution (including IT services) to BT was a key factor in their taking space from us. The clock was ticking on a new project, and being able to have the personnel operational by early May was business critical.”

Following this success with BT, SVO also secured project space on the same floor for another You View business partner company, Huawei Technologies. Once again, the speed of delivery meant that the time from initial negotiations to on site delivery was less than three weeks.

But Serviced Office Group’s ability to respond quickly to client’s project needs is not just being seen within the London market-place. The company is also seeing increasing signs of growth in its more remote locations.

“Occupancy rates continue to rise across the portfolio thanks to the efforts of our centre managers to quickly respond to the needs of their prospect” adds Andrew Butler.

“In Bournemouth, for example, we were able to help deliver a 24 workstation project space solution for M.L.S International College during the summer months and in doing so our occupancy in Bournemouth now sits at a healthy 96%. Once again speed to market for training rooms and a good quality of service was key to being awarded the contract.”

This ability to look after project space requirements is delivering medium-term letting successes for SVO:

“A good example of how a project space user can use our facilities to buy themselves time to plan for the future can be seen by companies such Randall & Quilter, an insurance, service provider and  underwriting management firm”, says Andrew Butler, “the company took short term project space with us on 1st December 2011, whilst reviewing its office accommodation requirements within the Maidstone area. 

“By utilising our premises they have been able to continue with their day-to-day business and plan for their future leased premises, without the constraints of worrying about capital expenditure and communications connections. What was planned as a three month stay with us has become extended to at least nine months, and we are pleased to be able to look after them until they have secured new long-term premises.”

Strong demand for project space, and Serviced Office Group’s ability to provide it, has helped centres such as 8-12 New Bridge Street at Blackfriars hit 100% occupancy in June , with sites such as Maidstone also now joining the 100% occupancy club. 

“We are seeing more and more businesses come to us with what we would view as large scale (3,000 square feet or more) project space requirements”, concludes Michael Kingshott CVO, Managing Director of SVO, “not only are we satisfying these requirements, but we are beginning to work in partnership which such companies to understand their medium-to-long term needs.

“In doing so, we are developing new opportunities to provide them with bespoke managed property solutions that are neither a serviced office solution nor a leased solution but a flexible hybrid of the two. Such solutions enable the client to choose who they partner with from an IT perspective and we leave them with the autonomy to choose their design and build but ultimately we will partner with them when it comes to the execution of such services.”