Mark Leslie James Dixon (born November 1959) is a Monaco-based English
billionaire
A billionaire is a person with a net worth of at least one billion (1,000,000,000, i.e., a thousand million) units of a given currency, usually of a major currency such as the United States dollar, euro, or pound sterling. The American busin ...
businessman, best known as the founder of serviced office business
Regus
IWG plc, formerly Regus, is a British holding company.[IWG PLC]
Bloomberg. Accessed June 2021. It provide ...
, renamed International Workplace group (
IWG plc
IWG plc, formerly Regus, is a British holding company.[IWG PLC]
Bloomberg. Accessed June 2021. It provide ...
) in 2016.
Early life
Dixon was born in November 1959. The son of a car mechanic, he was educated at Rainsford High School,
Essex
Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and G ...
, England. On noticing that a new housing estate needed nourishment for its gardens, he sold
peat
Peat (), also known as turf (), is an accumulation of partially decayed vegetation or organic matter. It is unique to natural areas called peatlands, bogs, mires, moors, or muskegs. The peatland ecosystem covers and is the most efficien ...
distributed by
wheelbarrow
A wheelbarrow is a small hand-propelled vehicle, usually with just one wheel, designed to be pushed and guided by a single person using two handles at the rear, or by a sail to push the ancient wheelbarrow by wind. The term "wheelbarrow" is mad ...
.
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
, INSEE = 83119
, postal code = 83990
, image coat of arms = Blason ville fr Saint-Tropez-A (Var).svg
, image flag=Flag of Saint-Tropez.svg
Saint-Tropez (; oc, Sant Tropetz, ; ) is a commune in the Var department and the region of Provence-Alp ...
, a miner in Australia, a farmhand in Asia; and selling
encyclopedias
An encyclopedia (American English) or encyclopædia (British English) is a reference work or compendium providing summaries of knowledge either general or special to a particular field or discipline. Encyclopedias are divided into articles ...
.
Returning to Essex, he invested £600 in a
burger van, based on London's
North Circular
The North Circular Road (officially the A406 and sometimes known as simply the North Circular) is a ring road around Central London in England. It runs from Chiswick in the west to Woolwich in the east via suburban North London, connecting ...
road.
From profits he then bought seven other vans, but found difficulty in obtaining good and regular bun supply.
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.
Relocating to
Brussels
Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...
, 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
IWG plc, formerly Regus, is a British holding company.[IWG PLC]
Bloomberg. Accessed June 2021. It provide ...
, an office space business, in 1989. By mid-2001 the business was worth £2 billion, with Dixon's 60 percent stake making him a billionaire.
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
Alchemy Partners is a British private equity firm, which specialises in investing in distressed and undervalued or underperforming businesses and other special situations through debt and equity throughout Europe.
Alchemy was founded in 1997 by ...
.
Regus bought the stake back three years later. Dixon has since rebuilt the business and expanded internationally. The company now has a presence in over 100 countries. Dixon remains the company's chief executive.
Dixon owns the Chateau de Berne vineyard in Provence which includes a five-star hotel and restaurant. The vineyard produces around 5 million bottles of wine a year, making it the second-largest producer in Provence. In 2017, Dixon bought the 150-acre Kingscote Estate in East Grinstead, West Sussex to expand production to the United Kingdom.
According to The ''
Sunday Times Rich List
The ''Sunday Times Rich List'' is a list of the 1,000 wealthiest people or families resident in the United Kingdom ranked by net wealth. The list is updated annually in April and published as a magazine supplement by British national Sunday news ...
'' in 2021, his net worth was estimated at £1.437 billion.
Personal life
Dixon married journalist Trudi Groves in 1988. In 2005, Dixon divorced Trudi in a £28.7m settlement.
Dixon is a resident of
Monaco
Monaco (; ), officially the Principality of Monaco (french: Principauté de Monaco; Ligurian: ; oc, Principat de Mónegue), is a sovereign city-state and microstate on the French Riviera a few kilometres west of the Italian region of Lig ...
for tax reasons.
He voluntarily pays tax in the United Kingdom.
References
External links
Mark Dixon bioat
Bloomberg Bloomberg may refer to:
People
* Daniel J. Bloomberg (1905–1984), audio engineer
* Georgina Bloomberg (born 1983), professional equestrian
* Michael Bloomberg (born 1942), American businessman and founder of Bloomberg L.P.; politician and ma ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dixon, Mark
1959 births
Living people
People from Essex
20th-century English businesspeople
21st-century English businesspeople
British billionaires
English expatriates in Monaco