Is WeWork Finished? The Downfall of a 4.7 Billion Dollar Company
When WeWork was launched, it was a game changer as it completely revolutionized how businesses operated and did their business. Here was a business aimed at providing shared workspaces for tech startups as well as offering services to other enterprises, aiding in their coworking efforts, a concept covered in detail over at the excellent runrex.com. It was a great partner for startups as it allowed them to save on money and resources, enabling them to focus their efforts on other areas of their business, especially on growth. WeWork was a big hit initially, owing a lot to its business model and the fact that it helped fill a gap in the market. In fact, there was a time when it was among the most successful companies around with over 280 locations in 32 countries, more than 5,000 employees and with its tentacles spread to over 80 cities all over the world, as discussed in detail over at ppchire.com. By the start of this year, in January, the company has a valuation of 47 billion dollars, which is huge to say the least. So, what happened to WeWork that it went from such as valuation to its current state and is it finished? Well, with the help of the subject matter experts over at guttulus.com, this article will look to take a look at this topic and have these questions answered.
When you talk about the downfall of WeWork, you can’t help but start at the valuation, which at 47 billion dollars, was pretty big for such a company, as revealed in discussions on the same over at bitgale.com. The valuation actually came about in January of 2019 when Neumann, the cofounder and CEO of WeWork managed to bring in a 2 billion dollar investment round from SoftBank. Everything looked rosy, with the company set to go public, with its IPO being run by JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs as discussed in detail over at the excellent runrex.com. However, as soon as the company filed for S-1, trouble begun brewing. Once a company announces it is going public, especially with an astronomical valuation like WeWork had, then people are going to begin to look into it closely to find out if it is the real deal, and that is what happened to WeWork. The bad news is that, the journalists, analysts and investors who begun taking a deeper look at the company didn’t like what they saw as per the gurus over at ppchire.com. One of the things to be uncovered was that the company actually had mounting losses, even though its revenue had doubled which was a red flag. There was no clear plan on how the company would turn things around and become profitable again and the list of risks to investors was lengthy, almost 30 pages it has been established.
Another red flag that made investors and experts, including those over at guttulus.com, jittery was the conflict of interest between the CEO and the company. Here, it was revealed that Neumann actually owned interest in 4 buildings that had been leased by WeWork which was staggering to say the least. What’s more, it was revealed that he had also taken out loans from the company, personal ones, so as to fund his lavish lifestyle, which astounded experts and investors alike. In a long list of damning accusations against him, as discussed in detail over at the excellent bitgale.com, there were also accusations that he used company money to fund pet projects, such as his love for surfing and many other such accusations which revealed great unprofessionalism from the CEO. Its business model, as discussed in detail over at runrex.com also looked unsustainable, and in fact, it was revealed that for every dollar the company made, it was spending 2 dollars, which only served to increase its losses. This meant that, if the company continued to grow as it was, then with its history of loses, it would have been unable to become profitable again, something the company readily accepted later on.
And so begun its downfall, with these revelations meaning that if the company was to attract interest during its IPO, then it was going to have to reduce its 47 billion dollar valuation significantly as per discussions on the same over at ppchire.com. The bad headlines that continued to follow the company meant that its big investor, SoftBank, became very jittery and began to push for the company to shelve its IPO until things were stabilized at least. This eventually led to changes in the company’s structure, as discussed over at guttulus.com, with a new board member joining, its first woman, and many others that the company felt would help stave off the negative press. The IPO was also delayed until October at the very least. Before then however, the downfall of the company continued to gather pace with the news that the company was considering significant layoffs to staff in September of this year. The very same day the news about layoffs broke, the CEO stepped down, choosing to take himself out of the firing line. Then came the news that many experts considered inevitable, that the company was delaying its IPO inevitably. It remains to be seen if WeWork is finished, but one thing is for certain, they have their work cut out for them if they are to save their bacon.
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