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WeWork is taking the SPAC route of going public in a $ 9 billion deal
WeWork, the once high-flying office sharing start-up that fell out of favor during a revealing IPO process in 2019, is finally about to make its stock market debut, but not through the traditional IPO route. check firm BowX Acquisition Corp, into a specialty acquisition company, or SPAC, merger that’s been all the rage on Wall Street lately. A SPAC is an empty firm that uses the proceeds of a public listing to buy a private company like WeWork. When the two merge, the private company takes over the SPAC’s stock trading. Tapping into the stock market through a SPAC requires less regulatory and investor supervision than a traditional IPO. In the deal announced Friday, WeWork is valued at $ 9 billion. That’s a huge drop from the $ 47 billion valuation during the failed IPO in 2019. The original listing was delisted due to widespread concerns about WeWork’s business model and founder Adam Neumann’s management style. WeWork eventually had to be bailed out by major shareholder SoftBank. The market debut for WeWork will come at a time of uncertainty about the future of office work, as economies open up, people get vaccinated, and employers find out how many employees should – or want to – return to the office after working from home during the health crisis. WeWork told potential merger partners it lost about $ 3.2 billion last year, sources familiar with the talks earlier this week told Reuters.