WeWork Falls On Its Knees

For years, WeWork Inc. has been trying to deliver a turnaround story - from co-working startup transforms into a stable, profitable public company. WeWork was not saved, and the co-working company now says there’s “substantial doubt” it will even be able to stay in business.

Bleeding Cash - WeWork was bleeding cash, and customers of its office rentals are canceling their memberships in droves. Its shares fell 17% in premarket trading on Wednesday. WeWork’s stock has plunged 98% since the company went public in October 2021, wiping out nearly $9 billion in market value. The stock was trading at 16 cents early Wednesday. Its bonds are also at deeply distressed levels. The company’s 7.875% unsecured notes due in 2025 last changed hands for 33.5 cents on the dollar, according to data from Trace.

The Harder They Fall - Few companies have risen to such towering heights only to crash so badly. WeWork was built on the idealism of Neumann, who started the business in 2010 with the designer Miguel McKelvey. Their vision was to lease office space and then rent smaller parcels of it to customers.

The startup expanded slowly, then quickly, then at blinding speeds, fueled by a zero-interest-rate financial environment in which venture capitalists dumped truckloads of money into startups that showed impressive growth rather than profits. By 2019, WeWork was the biggest private occupier of office space in Manhattan and London, operated millions of square feet in dozens of countries and was valued at $47 billion, which made it one of the most prized startups in America.

Stop The Bleed - Neumann was ousted in late 2019, and after thousands of layoffs and a bailout from WeWork’s biggest investor SoftBank Group Corp. The company named Sandeep Mathrani as CEO in the hope of a turnaround. Mathrani took over in February 2020, promising to stanch the financial bleeding and restore order. Mathrani was dealt an unenviable hand. Almost immediately upon his arrival, offices worldwide shut down, as the Covid-19 virus sent people into sustained lockdown. Overnight, the idea of setting foot in a WeWork became outlandish, even terrifying, and occupancy dropped to 46%.

The recovery was slow, and it took more than two years until WeWork’s offices were as full as they had been in late 2019. During that time, Mathrani tried other ways to keep the business going. In 2021, he orchestrated a blank-check merger to take WeWork public, at the height of the frenzy for special purpose acquisition companies, or SPACs. He oversaw the creation of a tech tool that landlords could buy to use WeWork software in their own buildings and the development of more spontaneous, on-demand ways for customers to access WeWork offices.

Financial Re-engineering - WeWork seemed to achieve a milestone in March when it struck a deal with some of its biggest creditors and SoftBank to cut its debt load by around $1.5 billion and extend other maturities. But then in May, after three years on the job, Mathrani suddenly stepped down for a job at Sycamore Partners, leaving WeWork without a permanent replacement.

As the pandemic dragged on, WeWork insisted that the shift toward remote and hybrid work would actually favor the company rather than weaken its business. Employers would be more wary of signing long-term leases and would turn to WeWork’s flexible models instead, the company argued.

In Tuesday’s statement, the company said more customers were leaving and fewer new members were signing up than it had anticipated. That churn was cutting into its occupancy rate, which dropped in the second quarter compared to the previous one.

To avert disaster, WeWork said it will focus over the next 12 months on reducing rental costs, negotiating more favorable leases, increasing revenue and raising capital. On Tuesday, WeWork said three of its independent board members are being replaced by four new board members. It’s continuing to search for a permanent CEO.