Fortune from coworking.
These office spaces that are rented at the workplace and monthly proliferate in Paris. And the actors of the sector, whether owners or not of the premises, get rich at high speed.
Coworking is on the rise in Paris. Large office spaces, anything but statutory, rented at the workplace and in the month, grow like mushrooms. In spring alone, 26,000 new square meters were created in the city, in neighborhoods as hip as Le Marais and rue Lafayette. The pace has accelerated so fast that the French capital has become the third city in the world behind it, behind New York and Barcelona, explains to the consultant in real estate company Cushman & Wakefield. It must be said that this business reports, and not just a little.
WeWork, the world leader in the sector, has achieved in seven short years of existence, the insane valuation of $ 17 billion. As much as the giant of the Carrefour distribution, without owning a single square meter of office. The giant with a slightly higher-end model than its competitors is currently present in 15 countries and more than 50 cities.
As for Bureau à Partager (BAP), the French leader in the management of these spaces occupied by different companies, it has achieved profitability in four years as a simple marketplace. At its birth in 2012, the start-up merely connects those who have offices to rent with those who seek. By paying commission, it brings close to the million euros of turnover in 2014, growing by 300% over one year. After a small fund raising of 2 million euros in 2016, it has a treasury such that it hires itself spaces, now a fortnight in Paris.
Space occupied 24/7
But you have to have solid shoulders to sign a lease in the tertiary real estate.Traditionally, it has been a nine-year commitment to owners who demand financial guarantees that are so robust that they often exclude young start-ups and small businesses from office. BAP can provide them, and even carry out the development works at its own expense. Rue Trudaine, where Bureaux à Partage has managed 7000 square meters of a former school for one year, "we invested 500,000 euros to transform disused school into a modern coworking space, which mixes closed offices and open space, "Said Claire Riondel, the spokesperson. The start-up has also been able to develop a coworking space management software, LiNK, whose licenses add a little spinach butter.
The methods of these new intermediaries to make the space profitable seem much more efficient than those of traditional office real estate. For example, at Nextdoor, Bouygues' newest subsidiary, which must allow the giant not to miss the coworking mark. In its offices in La Défense, the occupancy rate reaches 100%, practically 24/7, when it runs around 40% in typical Parisian buildings, only 5 days a week, and during office hours .
With call prices at 210 euros per month the workstation at Nextdoor or 250 at BAP, in the middle of Paris, there is no shortage of demand. This package includes some minimum services: telephone switchboard, security, cafeteria, computer support, photocopier. Then, each add adds a line to the note.Reservation at the time of meeting room, organization of meals-meetings, private parties. "We even organized the wedding of one of our coworkers on our site in Issy-les-Moulineaux," says Philippe Morel, CEO of Nextdoor. This goes as far as yoga or gardening classes, and the taking over of all the administrative services of the tenants.
"Our business model is much more like a hotel, which provides a room and optional services like half board, concierge, and that of a lessor of traditional offices", Philippe Morel decrypts. With each time, commissions for the operator who should report more and more. "This shift towards increasingly sophisticated services is still in its infancy," say Hélène Fiani Mrics and Jean-Louis Guilhamat, Cushman & Wakefield's real estate experts.
Another difference: these operators maximize the spaces they manage. In Issy-les-Moulineaux, in the first building that was operated by Nextdoor, "we worked on the capacity to increase from 200 to 300 workstations. No square meter is lost," says the DG. Upon arrival, "the workstation has a surface area of 6 or 7 square meters net in shared spaces, for a national average of 9 to 10 square meters in classical openspace, and 15 square meters in closed office, meeting rooms Understood, "says Cushman & Wakefield.
The other winner of this new form of commercial real estate is the landlord, the owner of the building. In more ways than one. By entrusting its property to a coworking operator, it is guaranteed to see it occupied for a long time."Nextdoor signs leases of at least 9 years, when companies, uncertain about the evolution of their business and their staff, are demanding contracts more and more short to the lessors," underlines Philippe Morel. All this without complicating the task since the landlord has signed a single contract, and leaves Nextdoor, Wework or BAP handle the administrative burden of multi-occupation.
The model also creates an unprecedented value for owners whose premises need to be rehabilitated, but whose site is not ready to begin. They can, like that of the Trudaine Street school, entrusted to BAP, continue to benefit from it in the meantime. A double winner since the contract with Bureaux à Partage provides for "a fixed remuneration, which includes the expenses, and a variable part according to the filling of the place", indicates its spokesman.
Even when he pays for his work to make his space a clone of the colorful and playful openspaces of Silicon Valley, the lessor pays for himself. This is what the owner of the site of Issy les Moulineaux has done, and "it has already resold its assets totally redeveloped with a very significant added value", assures the boss of Nextdoor.
It remains to be seen whether the final customer - the occupant of the office - gains, him, to settle in coworking. The operators interviewed assert that the cost to them is 30 to 50% cheaper. Experts at Cushman & Wakefield, for their part, "find it difficult to compare the price per square meter of commercial real estate, which does not include water, electricity, internet, security etc., All-inclusive package per coworking workstation ". BFM Business is conducting the investigation. Response to the next episode.
