Question

WeWork, a New York company that subleases office space, announced that it withdrew its IPO on 9/30/2019 after facing sharp criticism from investors following the release of its IPO filing. The company has raised billions of dollars from private investors, including SoftBank Group Corp., at a $47 billion valuation. But when the company announced an IPO plan on August 14, it was considering seeking a valuation of about $20 billion, which is less than half of the valuation estimated by its private capital. Its co-founder, Adam Neumann, stepped down as CEO on 9/24 and gave up his majority voting control.

So, based on what you have read, how has the company managed to raise significant amounts of capital from investors and ever-increasing valuation levels? What went wrong in WeWork’s valuation in IPO? What would you do now, given the cash flow requirements of WeWork going forward (move ahead with an IPO at a lower valuation, subscribe to equity directly to support WeWork's efforts to raise a loan, etc.)?

Answer 1

The company has managed to showcase high valuation through aggressive increase in its footprint across the globe and also increase in revenues. This increase in footprint was projected to fuel increase in revenues and then a corresponding increase in profits later on and this drove private equity players to pay a huge premium and drive up the valuation.

Since the profitability which was desired in its various assets was not forthcoming in the near future, the investors realised that the valuation should be much lower and this led to a significant markdown during its IPO.

Given that We work needs fund to survive, it is important that We work shelve it's IPO plans and then raise equity directly and use that as a collateral to further raise debt funds.