US co-working office provider WeWork to open in Hong Kong’s Causeway Bay

US based co-working office provider WeWork, which counts Legend Holdings among its financial backers, will launch its service in Hong Kong on Thursday to tap growing demand for flexible lease terms in the world’s most expensive office market.

Three of the eight floors at a grade-A office building Tower 535 in Causeway Bay will open on Thursday, with the remaining five floors, and its second location in Wan Chai, to come on the market later this year.

“Hong Kong is an important market for WeWork and we will continue to expand here, as well as in other locations across the region, following our recent openings in Shanghai in July and Seoul in August,” said Ole Ruch, WeWork’s Asia Pacific managing director.

He said the eight floors at the 25-storey Tower 535 will accommodate 1,400 desks, with another 800 desks at 33 Lockhart Road, Wan Chai.

Henek Lo, the company’s general manager for Australia, Hong Kong, Seoul and Sydney, said the two locations would add up to a combined total of 200,000 square feet of office space in Hong Kong.

WeWork, founded in 2010 in New York, currently operates more than 100 physical locations in over 30 cities including New York, London, Shanghai, Seoul, Sydney and Tel Aviv.

In July, the firm raised US$750 million in new funds from a group of mostly Chinese investors. Leading the latest round of Series F fundraising were Legend and its subsidiary, Hony Capital, with the remaining Chinese investors contributing a “substantial” share of the total, as reported by the South China Morning Post on July 11.