Is WeWork An Impending Train Wreck?

WeWork has 528 locations in 111 cities in 29 countries as of June 2019. Before its valuation collapsed from 48 billion to 20 billion during the past month, it had identified 280 additional cities as targets. In 2018 it lost 1.6 billion and the first six months of 2019 it lost $690 million. “Landlords have also struggled with WeWork’s credit that is nearly ‘impossible to underwrite’… Many lenders and appraisers have discounted the value of WeWork lesser…” “The challenge is that if rents actually begin to fall, WeWork isn’t going to be able to re-lease its space at higher rents.” National Real Estate Investor, October 2019. The median salary at WeWork is $106,545 but don’t get your interviewing shoes on just yet as they are about to lay off 4,000 employees. “According to the Financial Times, WeWork intends to lay off as many as 4,000 people, or about 40 percent of its global workforce. The company is also reportedly looking to outsource about 1,000 of its cleaning and maintenance staff jobs, and, according to current and former employees, the rumor going around is that the layoffs will likely focus on tech and design.

Vice News October 24, 2019