WeWork co-founder wants company back
NEW YORK CITY: Adam Neumann, the co-founder of office space provider WeWork, is seeking to buy the company out from bankruptcy, five years after being ousted as chief executive officer.
According to a letter to WeWork seen by Agence France-Presse (AFP), a lawyer for Neumann complained that he was awaiting answers since December about a potential investment.
“We write to express our dismay with WeWork’s lack of engagement even to provide information to my clients in what is intended to be a value-maximizing transaction for all stakeholders,” lawyer Alex Spiro wrote.
Spiro also said his client was partnering with hedge fund Third Point to rescue the company out of bankruptcy, according to the letter that was dated on Monday.
Third Point, however, told US media it had held only “preliminary conversations” with Neumann and his property company, Flow, and had yet to commit to the project.
WeWork went into bankruptcy in November with its major creditors set to take control of the company.
At its height, WeWork was the biggest private renter of office space in Manhattan with coworking spaces in cities across the globe.
Neumann was forced out of the company in 2019 with a $1.7-billion exit package while the company’s value was slashed to $8 billion.
This was a far cry from its $47 billion valuation ahead of an initial public offering that failed after investors soured on the company.
The collapse of WeWork cost Japanese billionaire Masayoshi Son, the owner of investment powerhouse Softbank, billions of dollars and served as a cautionary tale on giving too much leeway to headlinegrabbing entrepreneurs.
In November, Neumann was estimated to be worth $1.7 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.