Adam Neumann Withdraws $500 Million Offer to Buy Back WeWork

By Trisha Andrada

May 29, 2024 05:16 AM EDT

Adam Neumann, founder of WeWork, has decided not to pursue his multi-million dollar bid to reacquire the insolvent company. WeWork is a New York City-based firm offering many shared office spaces, including real and virtual ones.

Neumann Abandons WeWork Reacquisition Effort

Recent reports have indicated that Neumann, who was ousted in 2019 after the company failed to go public on the stock market, is interested in purchasing the company. He offered over $500 million to buy WeWork and all of its assets via his new real estate company, Flow Global.

But on Tuesday morning, May 28, Neumann verified that Flow Global was abandoning his plan to regain company control.

According to Reuters, Neumann told the New York Times' DealBook that they attempted to collaborate constructively with WeWork for a few months to develop a plan to enable it to thrive. He said, however, that the firm seems to be coming out of bankruptcy with an implausible strategy that is doomed to fail.

How WeWork Rose and Fell

In a report by the Guardian, WeWork sought to renegotiate its more than $13 billion in long-term leases by filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in November of last year.

The Japanese multinational SoftBank was one of many investors who helped propel the company's valuation to $47 billion. Nevertheless, experts placed a far lesser value on it when it was getting ready to go public in 2019. In 2021, when it did go public, its market value dropped to less than $50 million.

Following WeWork's initial failure to go public and criticism of the firm's internal culture during his tenure, Neumann resigned from his position in 2019 under pressure. But he got back on his feet in 2022 by founding Flow Global, a real estate company that solicited $350 million from the Silicon Valley venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz.

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