Mark Dixon (businessman)

Last updated

Mark Dixon
Born
Mark Leslie James Dixon

(1959-11-02) 2 November 1959 (age 64)
Essex, England
Education Rainsford High School
OccupationBusinessman
Known forFounder, Regus
Spouse
Trudi Groves
(m. 1988;div. 2005)
Children5

Mark Leslie James Dixon (born 2 November 1959) is a Monaco-based English billionaire businessman, best known as the founder of serviced office business Regus, renamed International Workplace group (IWG plc) in 2016. [1]

Contents

Early life

Dixon was born on 2 November 1959. [2] The son of a car mechanic, he was educated at Rainsford High School, Essex, England. On noticing that a new housing estate needed nourishment for its gardens, he sold peat distributed by wheelbarrow. [3]

Career

After leaving school at 16, Dixon founded a sandwich making business, Dial-a-Snack, which delivered locally on a butcher's bicycle. After the business failed, he travelled the world, becoming a barman in St Tropez, a miner in Australia, a farmhand in Asia; and selling encyclopedias. [3] [4]

Returning to Essex, he invested £600 in a burger van, based on London's North Circular road. [3] From profits he then bought seven other vans, but found difficulty in obtaining good and regular bun supply. [3] He set up The Bread Roll Company to supply his own and other mobile fast food vendors, which he sold in 1988 for £800,000. [4]

Relocating to Brussels, Belgium, he set up an apartment rental business. While sitting in a café, he regularly noticed how local business people were conducting meetings around the small tables of local coffee shops. He started Regus, an office space business, in 1989. [5] By mid-2001 the business was worth £2 billion, with Dixon's 60 percent stake making him a billionaire. [4] However, after the failure of the dot.com boom, Dixon's stake fell and he was valued at less than £80m.

In 2002, 58% of the UK arm of the business was sold to UK private equity firm Alchemy Partners. [4] [6] Regus bought the stake back three years later. [7] Dixon has since rebuilt the business and expanded internationally. The company now has a presence in over 100 countries. [8] Dixon remains the company's chief executive. [1]

Dixon owns the Chateau de Berne vineyard in Provence which includes a five-star hotel and restaurant. [9] The vineyard produces around 5 million bottles of wine a year, making it the second-largest producer in Provence. [10] In 2017, Dixon bought the 150-acre Kingscote Estate in East Grinstead, West Sussex to expand production to the United Kingdom. [11]

According to The Sunday Times Rich List in 2021, his net worth was estimated at £1.437 billion. [12]

Personal life

Dixon married journalist Trudy Groves in 1988; they divorced in 2005, with a £28.7m settlement. [4]

Dixon is a resident of Monaco for tax reasons. [4] He voluntarily pays tax in the United Kingdom. [2]

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References

  1. 1 2 Howard, Tom. "Serviced offices provider IWG considers three-way split". The Times . ISSN   0140-0460 . Retrieved 24 November 2021.
  2. 1 2 Shah, Oliver (6 October 2019). "Interview: I won't be celebrating WeWork's woes, says IWG boss Mark Dixon" . The Sunday Times. Archived from the original on 22 October 2021.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Cave, Andrew (17 July 2004). "Mark Dixon, CEO of Regus: A true entrepreneur back on the expansion trail". The Independent. London. Retrieved 25 April 2009.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Cave, Andrew (25 April 2009). "Mark Dixon: the Briton who wants to build a new Google". London: The Telegraph. Retrieved 25 April 2009.
  5. "Regus > Office Space Rentals, Meeting Rooms, Training Rooms, Video conferencing, Network Access, Virtual Offices, Executive Suites". Archived from the original on 19 December 2008. Retrieved 26 April 2009.
  6. Bowers, Simon (21 December 2002). "Regus sells off crown jewels to stay alive". The Guardian via www.theguardian.com.
  7. Venes, Robert (12 January 2013). "Alchemy sells back Regus UK holding".
  8. "Rent Office Space and Virtual Offices in 900 cities worldwide | Regus Saudi Arabia". En.saudiarabia.regus.com. Retrieved 26 January 2017.
  9. "Visiting Chateau de Berne, Provence, and an interview with consultant Hubert de Bouard". wineanorak.com.
  10. "South of England is 'new frontier' of wine, billionaire claims". 13 June 2017.
  11. "Billionaire Mark Dixon opens 'new frontier' in English wine". Evening Standard. 12 June 2017.
  12. "The Sunday Times Rich List 2021". www.thetimes.co.uk. Retrieved 24 November 2021.