WeWork goes from bad to worse

After botching its flotation, WeWork is facing a potentially fatal cash crunch. Digging itself out of this hole won’t come cheap. Matthew Partridge reports.

Adam Neumann of WeWork © Michael Kovac/Getty Images for WeWork

Adam Neumann is struggling to save his company
(Image credit: Adam Neumann of WeWork © Michael Kovac/Getty Images for WeWork)

Japanese conglomerate SoftBank Group is preparing a takeover bid for WeWork, says The Wall Street Journal. The office management company, now the "poster child for start-up excess", is "bleeding cash and [being] shunned by mainstream investors". In exchange for injecting enough money into WeWork to relieve its "looming cash crunch", SoftBank would take control of it. The proposed deal would further sideline WeWork's controversial founder, Adam Neumann, who recently resigned as CEO but retains "substantial" voting power. SoftBank, which has already invested over $10bn in WeWork, reckons it "needs at least $3bn to get through the next year".

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Dr Matthew Partridge
Shares editor, MoneyWeek

Matthew graduated from the University of Durham in 2004; he then gained an MSc, followed by a PhD at the London School of Economics.

He has previously written for a wide range of publications, including the Guardian and the Economist, and also helped to run a newsletter on terrorism. He has spent time at Lehman Brothers, Citigroup and the consultancy Lombard Street Research.

Matthew is the author of Superinvestors: Lessons from the greatest investors in history, published by Harriman House, which has been translated into several languages. His second book, Investing Explained: The Accessible Guide to Building an Investment Portfolio, is published by Kogan Page.

As senior writer, he writes the shares and politics & economics pages, as well as weekly Blowing It and Great Frauds in History columns He also writes a fortnightly reviews page and trading tips, as well as regular cover stories and multi-page investment focus features.

Follow Matthew on Twitter: @DrMatthewPartri