SoftBank seeks to take control of WeWork in bailout deal
Adam Neumann, the flamboyant co-founder and ex-chief executive of WeWork, could be stripped of his outsize voting power and chairmanship of the money-losing property company under a $9.5-billion rescue proposal from its largest investor, SoftBank, set to be considered by the board on Tuesday.
Neumann’s reduced status under the emergency refinancing caps the striking fall of a self-described visionary who two months ago was hoping to take his company public in one of the hottest stock market debuts of the year. Having previously expected his family to take charge of WeWork far into the future, Neumann will now see his company under the control of SoftBank, the Japanese technology and telecom group founded by Masayoshi Son.
WeWork would abandon its dual-class share structure, which at one point gave Neumann 20 times the voting power of other shareholders, under the SoftBank proposal, according to the three people briefed. Those voting rights, as well as a series of deals Neumann conducted with the company, emerged as a major source of concern for investors when the group was preparing for its IPO.
The debt in the SoftBank proposal would be on better terms than the debt financing cobbled together by JPMorgan, one person briefed on the rival offers said.
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