SoftBank to go ahead with WeWork stock tender offer

NEW YORK/BANGALORE, Nov 25, (RTRS): SoftBank Group Corp will this week launch a previously agreed tender offer for as much as $3 billion of WeWork shares, including up to $970 million owned by the office sharing company’s cofounder Adam Neumann, two people familiar with the matter said.

The tender offer to the founders, investors and employees owning stock was expected to launch earlier this month but was delayed after SoftBank sought technical revisions to the offer documents, according to the sources.

It will go ahead based on the previously announced terms at $19.19 a WeWork share as soon as Monday, these people said.

Last Thursday, Bloomberg reported that executives at SoftBank, the giant Japanese technology investment company, had been looking for a way to reduce the size of the offer, including limiting the amount paid to Neumann.

The report said that some SoftBank executives felt the payout to Neumann was too generous.

The people familiar with the matter said there was no discussion between WeWork and SoftBank about changing the terms of the offer, which one of the sources said could have opened SoftBank up to lawsuits from Neumann and others.

Spokeswomen at SoftBank and at WeWork both declined to comment.

The offer is a crucial part of SoftBank’s $9.5 billion rescue of WeWork agreed in October. SoftBank is also providing $6.5 billion in debt and equity financing to the company, which has been suffering huge losses and was fast running out of cash.