PETALING JAYA (March 7): Singapore-based Centennial Business Suites Ptd Ltd will be opening its second serviced/co-working space at KL Sentral by the end of this month, said its CEO Melvin Lim.

Located on Level 31 of Axiata Tower, the 13,900 sq ft office comprises 290 workstations and is Centennial’s eighth and largest office in Southeast Asia.

Centennial’s existing serviced office centre in Malaysia is located at the Etiqa Twins tower next to the Ascott Kuala Lumpur, Mandarin Oriental and Grand Hyatt hotels.

The centre commenced operations in 2012 and has an occupancy rate of 70%, with tenants mainly comprising European, US and Chinese multinationals (MNCs).

Commenting on the slowdown in the office market in the Klang Valley, Lim said it mainly affects “plain vanilla” offices and larger conventional office spaces, while the serviced office and co-working segments in Malaysia have been gaining popularity in the last three years.

“As a strong regional office operator with 21 years of experience, Centennial Business Suites is well-positioned to benefit from this new popularity in managed office spaces.

Lim said KL Sentral was chosen as the location of their new office due to its rail links to the KLIA and klia2 airports, which draws global tenants.

“The transport hub also connects well to key areas where Malaysians live and this ensures that the availability of high-quality professionals that MNCs want to employ are easily available. The changes in technology are supporting a flexible working culture, and this has resulted in the rising demand of managed office,” he explained, adding that Malaysia is a stable country with lots of potential that MNCs are always looking to expand into.

“With a weaker ringgit exchange rate to major currencies, there exist good opportunities for foreign companies to invest,” he added.

Centennial has a total of eight centres — two in Malaysia, five in Singapore and one in Jakarta with an average occupancy across all centres at 85%.

Moving forward, Lim noted that they are looking at more acquisitions in KL to expand their footprint in the region.