WeWork

WeWork is a company that offers a platform that focuses on providing office space, mail and package handling, conference rooms, weekly events, high-speed internet, and community networking to customers. The company was founded in 2010 by Adam Neumann and Miguel McKelvey.

WeWork was founded with the vision to create environments where people and companies can come together and work. Since opening its first location in New York City, WeWork grew into a global workplace provider that delivers flexible solutions, safety-focused spaces, and community experiences. The company offered a range of services that included move-in ready offices for teams of all sizes, dedicated desks in shared offices, bookable meeting rooms, and coworking memberships that provided users access to desks, lounges, and phone booths. WeWork primarily served individuals and small teams to medium and large companies.

WeWork first sought to go public in 2019 at a $47 billion valuation. However, the plans to go public imploded after investors recoiled at the company's losses, which were near $2 billion in 2018, leaving the company about to run out of cash; corporate governance lapses; and the management style of then-CEO Adam Neumann, which became fodder for news cycles which ran stories on his erratic management style and potentially illegal business conduct that would lead to an investigation by the New York state Attorney.

It took until 2019 before WeWork would finally go public. The company went public through a special purpose acquisition company at a valuation near $9 billion. The merger with BowX Acquisition Corp was announced in March of 2021 in a deal with a reported value of roughly $9 billion. Leading up to the 2021 IPO, WeWork parted ways with then-CEO Adam Neumann following their failed 2019 IPO, while the company's trouble continued, as the COVID-19 pandemic led to several rounds of layoffs at the company and WeWork suffered massive losses due to office space closures during pandemic shutdowns.

In October 2019, SoftBank stepped in to take an 80 percent stake in WeWork and took control of WeWork to right the company and lead it to the 2021 SPAC merger to take WeWork public.

In November of 2023, WeWork filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, considered a stunning fall for the once-lauded office-sharing company that promised to change the way people went to work. The filing came during disruption in the commercial real estate market, which struggled to recover following the COVID-19 pandemic shutdowns that forced a lot of previous occupants of commercial real estate space—and WeWork spaces—to restructure their real estate use.

The filing also came after years of difficulty for WeWork since its failed 2019 IPO and a carousel of CEOs after the ousting of cofounder and former CEO Adam Neumann. WeWork's struggles continued as the rising cost of borrowing money reduced the company's cash flow at a time when there was reduced interest in coworking spaces—both as more people had shifted to working from home, and as work-from-home solutions increased in sophistication. Meanwhile, competition in the coworking and flexible office space had increased during this time putting added pressure on We Work.

The company entered a restructuring agreement with most of its stakeholders aimed at slashing the company debt—which included further layoffs—and worked to trim its commercial office lease portfolio. The bankruptcy filing is also expected to erase around $3 billion of WeWork's debt.