London-focused flexible office-space provider Workspace reported on Wednesday a drop in quarterly occupancy, as larger customers vacated its properties, and warned that another major customer’s exit will lead to further decline in the second quarter.
Workspace has seen property valuations decline since the pandemic, as businesses ditched larger office spaces and opted for hybrid work models.
The company leased a monthly average of 93 new office spaces in the quarter, compared to 102 spaces in the prior year.
The company, which leases space to small businesses ranging from fintech firms to podcasters and people using AI to write music, said like-for-like occupancy dipped 0.3% to 82.2% in the first quarter.
Workspace has been disposing underperforming assets and investing in refurbishing other units to retain occupants.
“We have made good progress implementing the pilot projects at two of our high conviction sites, Vox Studios and The Leather Market, to test capital-light, high impact upgrades to our product,” CEO Lawrence Hutchings said in a statement.
(Reporting by Raechel Thankam Job and Ankita Bora in Bengaluru; Editing by Mrigank Dhaniwala and Eileen Soreng)
