Page 309 - James Caan - The Real Deal

30 · Private Equity

‘Tell me, David, where are you working now?’
‘For MWB, which is number two in the serviced office market.’
‘And before that?’
‘Regus.’
Regus is number one in the market.
‘How long were you at Regus?’
‘Five years.’
‘And how long have you been at MWB?’
‘Six years.’
This guy clearly had experience; I felt I could be pretty sure that
David knew what he was talking about. I liked him, which always
helps; he struck me as bright, motivated and knowledgeable. What
impressed me most was that he had come up with a new concept
for serviced offices, which was what was needed if he was going
to make a success of a new venture in what had become a mature
market.
Having been the tenant of serviced offices myself, I was well
aware of their limitations. One problem is that if you’re trying to
create a sophisticated company it doesn’t look very good when
clients come to see you and everything is branded with the serviced
office company’s logo: you want your clients to see your logo, not
your landlord’s. David’s idea was to unbrand the concept of the
serviced office, and it was something that immediately appealed to
me. You could convince your visitors that the whole building was
yours if you wanted to, just as I had done in Pall Mall all those
years ago. The difference between the managers of that building
and the business David was talking about starting was that his was
a scalable operation that could manage several buildings simul-
taneously. Not only did David’s unbranded concept mean that we
would be more likely to attract bigger and better companies as
tenants, but they were also more likely to hang around.
David also planned to make the most of new technology and
leapfrog the services Regus and MWB could provide. Fitting out a

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