Regus, a UK-based business-centre operator, opened a second floor of office space at the International Finance Centre in Central yesterday, hoping to replicate its success in attracting Internet companies as tenants in the United States and Europe. The company, which was started 10 years ago in England, said it would consider taking up space at the Cyber-Port project in future if technology companies were going there. Among Regus' existing clients are Microsoft, Yahoo! and on-line book and recorded music seller Amazon.com, as well as other multinationals and a host of start-up Internet companies. A number of mainland companies were also clients of Regus in Hong Kong. Senior vice-president of sales and marketing for Regus Asia Pacific, Paul Boldy, said: 'We would look at moving into Cyber-Port if that is where companies want to go.' The company's new business centre is on the floor above its first centre, opened in March this year, giving Regus 38,000 square feet of office and conference space in Hong Kong. Mr Boldy said that, because of the company's success in attracting small entrepreneurial companies in Britain, it had bought up space in technology centres to rent out to companies that could not afford long-term leases. Mr Boldy claimed that it was 66 per cent cheaper to rent office space from Regus than it was to enter into a lease. Regus now has 290 business centres in 45 countries around the world.
