Bringing a touch of luxury to the shared office

The Great Room’s co-working space in Singapore’s Centennial Tower doesn’t look like your average office. The floor is marble, the finishings are brushed gold and there’s coconut water in the pantry fridge. It’s a step up from the sector’s more utilitarian offerings, and the pricing reflects that.

Co-founder and chief executive Jaelle Ang is betting her clients can afford to spend even more. The Great Room Offices has just signed with Raffles Hotel to open its fourth location in the city.

The first co-working space in a sixstar hotel, it will occupy 1400sq m in one wing when the landmark property reopens after a major refurbishment this year.

At The Great Room’s existing Singapore locations, membership for a dedicated office (as opposed to a hot-desk pass) starts from S$2500 ($2690) a month.

Ang says that’s about 20 per cent higher than rival WeWork, but that customers enjoy much better privacy, security, acoustics and quality of fit-out.

Raffles will be more expensive again.

“We’re not targeting the 18-year-old entrepreneur, we’re targeting the 45-year-old who’s had a successful career and is now starting their own business,” she says. “Those sorts of people can’t have a ping pong table in the office or be seen in a makeshift space. They’re happy to pay extra for a premium working environment.”

The Great Room is managing to attract a blue-chip clientele. HSBC Holdings took 70 seats in One Taikoo Place in Hong Kong for one of its growth and innovation project teams and plans to expand that to around 150 over six months. The firm’s space in Bangkok’s Gaysorn Tower, meanwhile, hosts part of JD.com’s workforce.

Ang says The Great Room is close to signing tenants for its Raffles location, with family offices, private equity and venture capital funds showing particular interest.

“They can afford it and it’s a oncein-a-lifetime chance to associate with such a landmark building,” she says.

A growing number of multinational corporations are signing flexible workspace deals to complement their traditional leased office space, a Colliers report found.

“The new co-working and serviced office brands focus on building a community: a membership comes with space allocation along with other services and networking opportunities,” Bloomberg Intelligence real estate analyst Patrick Wong says.

Ang says The Great Room is starting to prepare to raise more money, but that scale isn’t the sole goal. “For us it’s about controlled growth,” Ang says.

“There are a lot of players fighting for market share but my metrics are never occupancy or number of locations. They’re positive Ebitda, or revenue per available desk. It’s a race to the bottom otherwise.”