WeWork's failed IPO

WeWork, which leased office space long-term and subdivided it into flexible short-term memberships for other companies, had raised billions from investors led by Japan's SoftBank on the strength of founder Adam Neumann's ambitious growth story, reaching a private valuation of roughly $47 billion by mid-2019. When the company filed to go public in August 2019, the regulatory disclosures required for an IPO exposed the underlying business for the first time: heavy and growing losses, a governance structure that gave Neumann outsized control and financial benefits, and conflicts of interest including the company paying Neumann personally for the trademark to its own name. Investor pushback intensified over the following weeks, forcing WeWork to withdraw its public offering entirely by September 30, 2019, and remove Neumann as chief executive, with his exit package later reported at up to $1.7 billion. SoftBank stepped in with a rescue package in October 2019 valuing the company at under $8 billion, an 83% discount to its earlier valuation, and WeWork eventually went public via a merger in 2021 before filing for its own bankruptcy in November 2023.