Mark Dixon (businessman)

Dixon was born in November 1959. 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.[2]

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.[2][3]

Returning to Essex, he invested £600 in a burger van, based on London's North Circular road.[2] From profits he then bought seven other vans, but found difficulty in obtaining good and regular bun supply.[2] Travelling between meetings on either a bicycle or in one of his vans,[4] 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.[3]

Relocating to Brussels, Belgium, he set up an apartment rental business. While sitting in a cafe, 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 £2bn, with Dixon's 60 percent stake making him a billionaire.[3] 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.[3][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 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]

Dixon married journalist Trudi Groves in 1988.[4] After selling his baking business, they moved to Belgium, but later returned to the UK and lived in Surrey, with their two children. Dixon has three children from prior relationships.[4] In late 2003, the family moved to Connecticut, US, so Dixon could improve the US business performance of Regus.[4] In 2005, Dixon divorced Trudi in a £28.7m settlement.[3] Dixon is a resident of Monaco for tax reasons.[3] He voluntarily pays tax in the United Kingdom.[12]

• Mark Dixon bio at Bloomberg