The company went public via a Spac.
(Photo: Bloomberg)
new York Hundreds of Wework employees gathered in front of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on Thursday to celebrate the moment that should have happened two years ago: The office broker is now listed on the stock exchange. At the stock market debut on Thursday, the stock rose more than five percent in early trading.
The IPO took place via a so-called Spac. These are shell companies that are already listed on the stock exchange and take over start-ups in order to bring them to the stock exchange – virtually through the back door. Wework is taken over by Spac BowX and receives $ 1.3 billion for it.
After the failed IPO in autumn 2019 “the value of the company was practically zero. The group was on the verge of bankruptcy, ”remembers Marcello Claure, Weworks Chairman of the Board of Directors, in an interview with the US stock exchange broadcaster CNBC.
After the great crisis, Wework has become a different company. Founder Adam Neumann retired, the business is now led by the experienced real estate manager Sandeep Mathrani, who has radically shrunk the company and focused on its core business.
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Wework aims to be profitable in 2022
It is unclear whether the major investor Softbank will ever see the ten billion dollars that the Japanese technology company has pumped into Wework over the years. The company, valued at $ 47 billion, was once America’s most valuable start-up. Now the valuation is still around nine billion dollars.
Sales have been rising again for several months. But Wework is not yet profitable. Mathrani expects the office agent could make profits for the first time in the coming year. The need for more flexible office space could play a role in Wework, he believes.
The glamorous founder Adam Neumann wasn’t on Wall Street with the rest of the staff. However, together with co-founder Miguel McKelvey, he held a small party of their own for the early employees of the start-up, a few kilometers further in the trendy Standard Hotel. Neumann still holds eleven percent of Wework and had largely withdrawn from the public eye over the past two years.
More: Big Tech is investing heavily in the New York real estate market