Mark Dixon (businessman)

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]

Mark Dixon
Born	Mark Leslie James Dixon (1959-11-02) 2 November 1959 (age 65) Essex, England
Education	Rainsford High School
Occupation	Businessman
Known for	Founder, Regus
Spouse	Trudi Groves ​ ​ (m. 1988; div. 2005)​
Children	5

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]