Tycoon takes £237m hit as office firm dives 32pc

Office tycoon Mark Dixon was nursing a £237m loss last night after a bruising profits warning sent shares in his company crashing by a third.

The essex-born 57-year-old, who set up Regus in 1989, saw the value of his 25pc stake in the group fall from £736m to £499m.

The slump came after the firm, which provides office space in 1,000 cities around the world and is now called IWG, warned profits for the year are likely to be between £160m and £170m. it conceded this was ‘materially below market expectations’ of up to £215m. it made £186m last year.

Shares dived 32pc, or 102.8p, to 216.3p, wiping £937m off the value of the company.

Dixon, who is married with five children, set up Regus while living in Brussels, where he noticed that businessmen regularly held meetings in cafes. The company now has 3,000 centres in over 100 countries where anyone can rent fully serviced office space for a day, a week or a year. But in a grim update to the stock market, it said an expected pick-up in business last month was not as strong as hoped, in part due to an earthquake in Mexico, hurricanes in the US and Brexit uncertainty.

Rival Workspace was caught up in the sell-off at IWG, falling 2.4pc, or 22.5p, to 917p.

Shares around the world sank into the red amid concern over the political battle in Spain between the government in Madrid and independence supporters in catalonia.

The FTSE 100 index closed down 19.83 points, at 7523.04, while the

FTSE 250 was 128.25 points lower, at 20131.52.

Stock markets in Spain and italy fared the worst, with the main benchmarks in each falling 0.7pc and 1pc respectively. AiM-listed gold and zinc explorer

Connemara Mining jumped 8.8pc, or 0.32p, to 4p after it bought Hendrick Resources ireland, which was set up in 2011 by legendary gold miner Dale Hendrick.

The 17 licences acquired are focused on gold in the Wicklow and Wexford areas. Prospectors have targeted the area ever since the Wicklow gold rush of 1795. Online travel agency On The

Beach said it ‘traded well’ in the 52 weeks to the end of September, with revenues up 17pc over the year, including a 26pc rise in the second half.

‘The group experienced significant growth for the majority of the key summer trading period, despite some softness in the weeks that followed the Barcelona terrorist attack in August, and we have exited the financial year with strong forward momentum,’ it said.

The company said the integration of rival Sunshine was now ‘substantially complete’ following the acquisition in May.

it also continues to help customers who booked flights with collapsed airline Monarch. Shares fell 2.2pc, or 10p, to 440p.

Back among the mid- caps, shares in trading firm Nex fell 5.2pc, or 34p, to 622p after analysts at RBC capital Markets cut its rating and lowered the target price to 600p from 650p. ‘ While Nex has a number of positives, we believe the shares continue to trade above their fair value despite an increasingly challenging outlook,’ the analysts said. There was better news for retailer

N Brown, as HSBC upgraded the shares to a ‘buy’ rating from ‘hold’, and raised the target price from 330p to 385p. Shares in the company, which owns clothing brands Jacamo and Simply Be, rose 5.3pc, or 16.4p, to 325.7p.

Builders’ merchant and Wickes DIY chain owner Travis Perkins said it jacked up prices in the third quarter as sales rose 4.1pc. Shares were yesterday up 2.2pc, or 33p, at 1505p.