CAPITAL International has been welcomed to the capital by the Mayor of Douglas, Councillor Ritchie McNicholl.
Formerly headquartered in Castletown, and with a Douglas office in Victoria Street, the Capital International Group has consolidated all its operations into one flagship 20,000 sq ft building in central Douglas, Capital House, on Circular Road, the site of the former Isle of Man Post Office headquarters.
The civic party of the Mayor, Mayoress Mrs Julie McNicholl, Douglas Borough Council leader David Christian and chief executive Kathleen Rice, along with Douglas Development Partnership manager Chris Pycroft, was greeted by Capital International chairman Peter Long and chief executive officer Anthony Long who led the tour of the building.
The relocation of Capital House is the culmination of a four-year-long search for a suitable building in the heart of the Island’s business and commercial centre. Anthony Long said it was important to the company that the offices would not only reflect the group’s heightened profile as a result of its diversification strategy in recent years, but that would also be able to accommodate the group’s projected growth.
“Relocating to new headquarters is a massive step for Capital International,” he said. “These are exciting times for Capital International. As a company we have grown and are continuing to grow. We are 60 in number now and currently occupy one and a half floors of Capital House to accommodate all our business activities.”
The new offices benefit from a sophisticated integrated IT infrastructure with full virtualisation capability hosted by Manx Telecom. In addition to providing premium office space, Capital House will also be the home of the Isle of Man Business Centre.
Mr Long said that the Isle of Man Business Centre was born out of an urgent need to provide premium quality serviced lounge and office suites to visiting business people. ”Isle of Man PLC has an office in the City of London at Number 1 Cornhill but until now there has been nowhere in the Isle of Man providing similar facilities.”
The Isle of Man Business Centre, with its serviced offices, private meeting spaces, board room, lounge area, workstations and sophisticated IT infrastructure would, said Mr Long ‘create conditions conducive to attract new business to the Isle of Man.
The centre, which has the support of the Isle of Man Institute of Directors, is to be operated by the Chamber of Commerce, which is also relocating to Capital House. Tenants have been secured for the remaining office units, while the ground floor will house a public restaurant and bar along with a private members’ club.
In his welcome address the Mayor said that the Council had been pleased to learn that such a blue-chip company as Capital International was to be relocating to Douglas and to “a brilliant new facility”. He praised the diligence of the workforce for growing the business year on year and welcomed them to the capital in Manx: ‘Ta Doolish cur failt erriu’ (‘Douglas welcomes you’).
Capital House will be officially opened later this year.
