Paul Nellist is the EMEA Managing Director of Hana, the coworking service launched by CBRE – the worlds biggest real estate advising and brokerage company. Hana is a fully owned subsidiary of CBRE which operates 6 locations in the US and 4 in the UK (London and soon Manchester). We have interviewed Paul Nellist to find out more about Hanas expansion plans in Europe.

Main takeaways

The highlights from our conversation with Paul Nellist are summarised below:

• Hana is discussing partnerships with landlords in different European cities like Amsterdam, Dublin, Madrid, Paris, Berlin…
• The model is very much based on management agreements with landlords, similar to how the hotel industry works.
• Hana will design, operate and fill the spaces for landlords and is also able to provide capital to fit out the building: “That’s the benefit of being part of a Fortune 128 company. We have access to capital which builds trust, also from the landlords perspective”, explains Paul Nellist.
• Hana’s products are split between three main offerings, which they complement by providing exclusive services like in a boutique 5 start hotel:

• 1. 1. “Hana Team” provides suites and studios for companies of up to 300 people. It comes with a lobby, internal meeting rooms and can be branded to the occupier tastes and wills. Team suits will usually take up 70% of a Hana space.
     2. “Hana Meet” is on demand meeting space and conference facilities. It can be a training room, a pitch room, a board room, etc.
     3. “Hana Share” is a sort of sophisticated open space coworking, allowing the occupier to leverage the use. It also supports the other offerings. “During a week for instance, an occupier might have 100 seats. Let’s say on a Thursday they might be 120 and the 20 additional needed seats can be provided on a flexible base through Hana Share”, explains Paul Nellist.” “Hana Share” represents 5-10% of the typical overall space.
• “Occupiers long term strategies are changing“, observes Paul. “They look for flexibility in the post Covid-19 crisis time. The biggest remote working experiment the world as ever seen has worked. An office is a place to work, but also to collaborate and get inspired. We want to support that trend“, he affirms.
• CBRE is the world biggest Real Estate consultancy company: “We can leverage the whole CBRE ecosystem. This is a key benefit for us, for the landlords we collaborate with and our clients”, thinks Paul Nellist.
• “We offer companies their own space and environment. A natural evolution is going on, in terms of need for hospitality and flexibility. Landlords will still do their traditional leasing, but they will also need to be able to offer flexibility to their occupier. This is the overwhelming feedback we are getting from the many surveys we have had”

Watch the full video conversation with Paul Nellist below.