The cost of London offices may fall significantly in the next two to three years as demand for office space will remain low amid remote working and downsizing in some companies, experts believe Citi.
According to analysts of the investment bank, the cost of offices in the British capital will decrease by 38% over the period specified in the forecast.
Analysts say that the owners of office buildings in the next four years will have to reduce the cost of rent by 43%. Against the backdrop of falling rental prices office buildings will have to sell at a price more than 40% below current market value.
At the same time, analysts note that the duration of such a decline will mainly depend on how soon the inflation rate will slow down.
Estonian company Nortal, which is engaged in strategic consulting and technology implementation, has bought the Skelia IT company along with its offices in Eastern Europe, Dragon Capital said in a press release.
“Skelia has established itself as an international leader in building dedicated technology teams in areas where customers want to remain in control of the development process while experiencing the stability of a premium team and quality of service. Their strong presence in western Ukraine and Poland will provide Nortal with an excellent platform for growth. Together, we can further expand our business across geographies and time zones while strengthening our offering and serving customers across the full spectrum of their needs,” Nortal CEO and Founder Priit Alamäe was quoted as saying.
As noted, the companies will focus on creating new synergies and value for customers, as well as creating additional opportunities for Skelia employees in Poland and Ukraine, which will now become part of Nortal.
“By joining forces, Nortal and Skelia will leverage each other’s complementary and individual strengths, as well as provide new career opportunities for our global combined team of more than 1,700 people. Nortal brings us a wealth of experience in building end-to-end solutions and products. This greatly complements Skelia’s longstanding business of building over 200 sustainable cross-border IT and engineering organizations for leading companies in Europe, the UK, the Nordics and the US,” Skelia CEO and co-founder Patrick Vandewalle was quoted as saying.
The amount of the agreement is not reported.
Skelia was founded in 2008 and currently employs over 350 people, primarily in Ukraine and Poland. Skelia serves clients in 10 countries and operates through a network of offices in the Benelux countries, Poland, Ukraine and the USA.
Nortal was founded in 2000. The company has more than 1.4 thousand employees and has 20 offices in Europe, the USA and the Middle East.
Dragon Capital acted as an advisor to Nortal on this deal. Oaklins Sweden acted as an advisor to Skelia.
Indian-based Indegene, in which Carlyle and Brighton Park Capital announced a $200 million investment for global expansion and acceleration of M&A deals a year ago, plans to open offices in Lviv (Ukraine), Krakow and Rzeszow (Poland), as well as Guadalajara (Mexico) for healthcare consulting and life sciences research.
“We are very impressed with the deep talent pool in Mexico, Poland and Ukraine. They have contemporary digital skills, great analytical abilities, and a nuanced understanding of user experience. We look forward to enhancing it with life sciences expertise and modern business process knowledge. Together, these skills open up tremendous career opportunities for a diverse, local talent community in a purpose-driven industry,”Manish Gupta, the co-founder and CEO of Indegene. Said.
Indegene, founded in 1998 by five entrepreneurs, has become a major player in the digital transformation market for medicine and healthcare. With more than 3,000 employees in North America, Europe, China, Japan and India, Indegene provides technology platforms and commercialization services to pharmaceutical, biotech and healthcare companies and has completed at least seven M&A transactions over the years.
Creative States office solutions service company plans to open new locations in Kyiv, Dnipro and Kharkiv in 2022, doubling the total area of office space to 30,000 sq m, the press service of the company told the Interfax-Ukraine agency.
“We continue to scale Creative States in Ukraine. Five locations, more than 15,000 sq m and 2,500 residents. We are ready to “double” because we see from the response of tenants that the format of flexible offices, service support and access to the community remains the most in demand on today,” Creative States CEO and founder Ilia Kenigshtein said.
The first of the openings of 2022 was the finalized second building of Arsenal with a total area of more than 2,500 square meters, designed for 500 residents.
The company recalled that in October 2021, the first floor of the facility was launched with the format of business studios designed for teams of up to 15 people and with a separate entrance to them from the internal Mardi Gras square. In January, the rest of the office infrastructure was launched: fixed offices (32), a hot-desk zone, meeting rooms (8) and skype rooms (12), business suites (6) and executive suites for teams. In addition, in the second Arsenal residents have access to a special noir room for relaxation with ambient music, completely isolated from extraneous noise. There are also common areas: an enlarged kitchen with appliances and services of a chef, bathrooms with showers, a children’s room, a lounge with a bar, and a two-level parking lot.
The total footage of the entire Creative States office complex at Arsenal has reached 10,000 square meters, including two separate architectural objects and the internal Mardi Gras square. This is a fully equipped office and lifestyle infrastructure designed for more than 1,200 residents. In the near future, the company plans to continue expanding this facility and increase it by another 300 seats.
Creative States positions itself as a network of premium class flexible workspaces with a full range of operational services. Today, the network includes three locations in the capital: in the Senator business center, the Gulliver business center, Creative States of Arsenal, and Creative State of Dnipro in Dnipro. In May 2021, Creative States presented a franchise aimed at both Ukrainian million-plus cities and the West.
Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Digital Transformation of Ukraine Mykhailo Fedorov calls for the opening of separate representative offices of Google and YouTube in the country.
“The team of the Ministry of Digital Transformation is to meet with the Google team. We will talk about the company’s development plans in Ukraine. We really want to see separate representative offices of Google, YouTube in Ukraine,” Fedorov said on the air of the Ukraine 24 TV channel during his working visit to Washington (the United States).
According to him, during military aggression, it is necessary that the content is moderated in Ukraine, and not in Russian offices.
Two thirds of hotels have reduced their expenses by headcount optimization, 27% of respondents have implemented alternative services and rented rooms as offices, according to the study entitled “Ukraine Hotel Market & COVID-19 Impact” conducted by the Ukrainian Hotel & Resort Association (UHRA) together with international tourism experts from Horwath HTL.
“Two-thirds of hotels have decided to reduce prices – an instinctive (yet not necessarily efficient) step to boost occupancy. One third of respondents introduced digital & marketing tools. Apparently, before the pandemic was not considered critical. Some 27% of respondents have introduced alternative services, i.e., co-working, renting rooms as offices, etc,” UHRA International Relations Director Ivan Lun told Interfax-Ukraine.
He added that some respondents (7%) decided to change the function of some areas, i.e. for a gambling facility.
Lun said that vast majority of respondents (93%) confirmed an overall drop in their revenues, and more than 60% of hotels had revenues shrink by more than 40%.
“Only 4% of hotels showed an increase in revenues, and 3% reported that it remained at the level of 2019. Hoteliers who reported growing revenues were all located in the countryside,” the expert said.
Despite a difficult year for the industry, only 2% reported that they are actively seeking exit by selling their hotels and over 90% responded that they will keep operating even with certain limitations.
According to Lun, almost a quarter of hoteliers (23%) expect their performance to return to 2019 levels in 2021; 57% – in 2022 and only slightly less than 20% – in 2023 or later.
Some 122 respondents have participated in the survey, with an average size of 72 rooms per property. Two thirds of the responses came from urban, while 34% from rural locations.
