WeWork has agreed to merge with a special procurement company, according to people familiar with the matter, in an agreement that would take the shared office provider’s audience nearly two years after its profile failure to launch an IPO traditional.
Planned merger with BowX Acquisition Corp. SPAC would value WeWork at $ 9 billion, including debt, people said. WeWork will also raise $ 1.3 billion, including $ 800 million in a so-called private equity investment, or PIPE, from Insight Partners, funds managed by Starwood Capital Group, Fidelity Management and others, people said.
In January, The Wall Street Journal reported that WeWork was in talks to merge with BowX.
WeWork is a major player in the market for flexible office space. He signs long-term leases with landlords, then, after renovating and furnishing a space, subleases small offices or even entire buildings to tenants for just one month in a row. If the merger ends in the coming months, as expected, it would cover what has been a long and bumpy road to a list for WeWork.
The company takes advantage of a torrent of new SPACs to achieve what it failed to achieve in 2019, when public investors rejected the losing company and its visionary but irregular leader, Adam Neumann, who later resigned. president and CEO. Further hit by the coronavirus pandemic, which emptied offices across the country, WeWork closed locations, renegotiated leases and cut thousands of jobs to cut costs.