founder of bankrupt WeWork wants to buy the company for $500 million – Kommersant

The founder and former head of the recently bankrupt WeWork co-working chain, Adam Neumann, has made an offer to buy out the company and is ready to pay more than $500 million for it. About this reports The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), citing knowledgeable sources. The sources have no information about how Mr. Neumann will finance the purchase of the company if he receives permission to do so.

WeWork was founded by Adam Neumann in 2010 and quickly became one of the largest and most promising startups with a valuation of $50 billion. Among its investors were SoftBank and its venture fund VisionFund, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, T. Rowe Price Associates and others. In 2019, the company began Problems, behind which stood an unsuccessful business model, mismanagement and the controversial behavior of Adam Neumann himself. The startup’s operations began to decline rapidly, and losses began to grow just as rapidly. The company held an IPO in 2021, and its value at first reached $8 billion. Now its market capitalization is only $13 billion. In November 2023, the company launched the procedure restructuring debts by filing a bankruptcy petition in the New Jersey state court under Art. 11 of the US Bankruptcy Law (restructuring under protection from creditors).

The first reports that Adam Neumann would like to return to the company and buy it out appeared in early February. It was about possibilities Mr. Neumann’s purchase of WeWork together with investor Daniel Loeb and his hedge fund Third Point. At the same time, it was noted that the current managers of the bankrupt company ignore offers to buy it out. Now WSJ sources name the potential amount that Adam Neumann is willing to pay for WeWork, and note that the hedge fund Third Point is not involved in the potential deal. WeWork itself responded to the WSJ’s request that it “regularly receives acquisition proposals from third parties” and “the board of directors and advisors review these proposals as a matter of routine to ensure that we always act in the long-term interests of the company.”

Alena Miklashevskaya