WeWork stock has lost 85% of its value from October 2020 to 2023, meaning it is one of the decade’s worst investments. Extreme mismanagement and alleged corruption plague the stock.
If you want to know why initial public offerings (IPOs) and new stocks are dangerous, you need to examine WeWork.
WeWork went from the stock of the decade; and the future of the work to the poster child for failed IPOs in less than two years. WeWork IPO’ed in October 2020; let’s examine the devastation.
Note: This is an unbiased research report. The author or Liberated Stock Trader is not affiliated, paid by, or owns stock in any of the companies mentioned in this report.
WeWork Stock
Buying WeWork stock has been the worst investing decision in the 2020s for retail and institutional investors. Poor management and creative accounting have contributed to its downfall.
WeWork Stock Price Downfall
Greater problems began on September 9, 2019, when The Financial Times claimed Softbank was urging WeWork to cancel the IPO. Softbank is one of WeWork’s biggest investors; it led a $1 billion investment in WeWork in January 2020.
WeWork itself began raising doubts by filing paperwork to change governance. Rebekah Victoria Neumann had a role in replacing the We Company’s CEO on September 13, 2019, SEC filing indicates.
Rebekah is the wife of WeWork cofounder and CEO Adam Neumann. The filing worried investors because it gave an outsider influence over management. The same filing reduced Adam Neumann’s voting power at the We Company.
On September 17, 2019, The Wall Street Journal claimed that WeWork was planning to delay the IPO until October 2019. Investors became scared after WeWork management refused to deny The Journal’s allegations.
A week later, on September 24, 2019, The Information claimed WeWork was planning to fire one-third of its employees, or 5,000 people, to save money. On the same day, Adam Neumann quit his job as the We Company’s CEO.
Investors forced Neumann out because of allegations the CEO was smoking marijuana and making bad decisions. Many people were skeptical of the bizarre corporate culture Neumann fostered and the influence his wife had over the company’s governance.
On September 30, 2019, WeWork’s CEOs Artie Minson and Sebastian Gunningham announced the IPO was indefinitely delayed. The two claimed WeWork has “every intention to operate WeWork as a public company and look forward to revisiting the public equity markets in the future” in a press release.
WeWork Stock Performance Disaster
Since its launch, WeWork has been a complete disaster of an investment, never registering a single week of bullishness with the proven Liberated Stock Trader MOSES system. An 86% loss in two years is a really bad, bordering fraudulent investment.
See the Chart in Real-time on TradingView
WeWork IPO
Problems began on September 5, 2019, when Bloomberg alleged WeWork’s value was between $20 billion and $30 billion. Bloomberg alleges that WeWork’s true value could be less than half of the management’s claims.
Reuters reports that the We Company changed its name back to WeWork in October 2020.
The name reversion was one of many changes made by new management Softbank installed, Reuters reports. Softbank kicked Adam Neumann out because the former CEO had trademarked the name We company.
Neumann sold the We Company trademark to WeWork for $5.9 million. Neumann returned the money and surrendered the trademark after media criticism.
On October 29, 2020, WeWork’s new Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Sandeep Mathrani told Bloomberg the company could hold another IPO in 2020. Mathrani said he would consider another IPO when WeWork turns a profit.
WeWork is withdrawing from markets, including Hong Kong. Competitor IGW has taken over office space WeWork vacated in Hong Kong, The South China Morning Post reports. ISW has leased two spaces formerly used by WeWork in Hong Kong.
You want to be a successful stock investor but don’t know where to start.
Learning stock market investing on your own can be overwhelming. There’s so much information out there, and it’s hard to know what’s true and what’s not.
Liberated Stock Trader Pro Investing Course
Our pro investing classes are the perfect way to learn stock investing. You will learn everything you need to know about financial analysis, charts, stock screening, and portfolio building so you can start building wealth today.
★ 16 Hours of Video Lessons + eBook ★
★ Complete Financial Analysis Lessons ★
★ 6 Proven Investing Strategies ★
★ Professional Grade Stock Chart Analysis Classes ★
WeWork Stock
WeWork’s business model is so unusual it has several names. Reporters call the business co-working or space-sharing. WeWork, however, uses the term Space-as-a-Service. Competitor IWG uses the term flexible space.
That means WeWork rents five different types of office space. The difference between WeWork and a traditional landlord is that WeWork rents office space flexibly.
WeWork can provide an office or meeting room for a few hours, days, or a long-term lease. Another difference is that WeWork sells memberships that give members access to its properties worldwide.
A New York WeWork member can fly to London and use the WeWork office during a business trip. WeWork makes money by selling two kinds of membership: All-Access and On-Demand. All-Access members pay a flat rate for the use of any WeWork facility. On-Demand members only pay for the office space they use. WeWork generates other revenues by renting additional services, such as conference rooms to members and selling tickets to events.
Another difference between WeWork and a traditional office is that WeWork provides all the amenities, equipment, and services its customers need. WeWork provides desks, chairs, printers, IT, high-speed internet, copiers, beverages, meeting rooms, and support staff. The WeWork customer can walk in and go to work at any time. Many WeWork facilities are open 24 hours a day and seven days a week.
WeWork offers customers both private and open workspaces (co-working environments). The private workspaces are fully-furnished offices. The three private workspaces are a standard office, office suites, and full-floor offices. Thus WeWork can use private office space for one worker or a large team.
The open workspaces are hot desks and dedicated desks. The hot desk is a desk in an open work area any WeWork member can use. The dedicated desk sits in an open area, but they lease it to one customer.
WeWork allows members to book workspace by the day and meeting rooms by the hour through its app. WeWork members range from individuals to large companies. WeWork’s website claims those customers include Microsoft (MSFT), Slack (WORK), and Salesforce (CRM).
Vox Recode estimates WeWork leased 45 million square feet of office space at 528 locations worldwide in August 2019. WeWork operated in 111 cities in 29 countries in August 2020. WeWork provided over 604,000 workstations for its members in August 2019.
The number of WeWork locations has shrunk since August 2019. The South China Morning Post reports that WeWork has closed offices in some cities, including Hong Kong. WeWork claimed to have 500,000 members in 2019. Its larger competitor IWG had 2.5 million members in August 2019.
A key difference between WeWork and older office-rental companies is that WeWork offers information technology (IT) support as a platform. WeWork employed 1,000 engineers to support its platform in August 2019, Vox Recode claims. WeWork could have laid many of those engineers when it eliminated one-third of the workforce in October 2019.
The platform allows WeWork members to integrate their technology into its system. That means WeWork members can store their data in WeWork’s cloud and access WeWork’s networks and cloud with their computers. For instance, a member can print documents from his documents on WeWork’s machines.
WeWork tried to brand itself as a tech company. I consider WeWork a real estate company because its main product is office space. WeWork is a landlord that makes money by renting office space. However, WeWork has a unique model for renting that office space.
Why the WeWork IPO Failed
The main cause of WeWork’s IPO failure was an unrealistic valuation based on hype rather than real numbers.
Fast Company notes that some analysts valued WeWork at $47 billion in August 2019. However, the same analysts valued WeWork’s closest competitor International Workplace Group (IWG), at $3 billion.
IWG had more locations, members, and revenue than WeWork at the IPO time. Recode estimates IWG had over 3,000 locations, 2.5 million members, and revenues of $3.4 billion in 2018. WeWork, in contrast, had 528 locations, 500,000 members, and revenues of $1.8 billion.
Analysts failed to look closely at We Work until just before the IPO. Another problem was the former CEO, Adam Neumann. Critics accuse Neumann of corrupt and arrogant behavior as WeWork CEO.
Neumann bought stakes in real estate that WeWork leased, The Atlantic alleges. I think that practice resembles insider trading. Neumann also tried to pay himself $5.9 million for the copyright to the name We company. There are also allegations that Neumann smoked marijuana on company planes and encouraged drinking at work by pouring tequila shots for employees.
Atlantic writer Ian Bogost alleges Neumann designed the IPO to give himself over half of WeWork’s voting power. Neumann hired his wife, Rebekah Neumann, as brand chief and impact officer. Rebekah Neumann used her position to start a private elementary school, WeGrow, rather than promote WeWork’s core business offices.
Bogost believes WeWork’s business plan was flawed and doomed to fail. The writer thinks a co-sharing business model is incompatible with a for-profit company.
3 Investing Alternatives Better Thank WeWork
1. Boston Properties (NYSE: BXP)
Boston Properties is the largest publicly-held owner of upscale office buildings or Class Office properties in the United States.
Boston Properties (BXP) is similar to WeWork because it rents office space. The difference is that Boston Properties is a traditional landlord that only rents space. WeWork and Boston Properties compete for some of the same tenants.
See the Chart in Real-time on TradingView
Boston Properties is a real estate investment trust (REIT). A REIT owns, manages, and leases real estate to tenants.
A danger for WeWork and IWG is that REITs such as Boston Properties will convert some of their buildings into short-term rentals and co-working spaces. Boston Properties owns office buildings in some of WeWork’s biggest markets, including Boston, Los Angeles, New York City, San Francisco, and Washington, DC.
Boston Properties claims to own 13 million square feet of office space. Boston Properties makes money from its properties.
I consider Boston Properties a good stock for income investors; it pays a dividend yield of 5.51% in 2023. I think Boston Properties will keep paying that dividend because it has long-term leases with tenants such as the Volkswagen Group of America.
A press release claims that Volkswagen leased 196,000 square feet of office space in Reston, Virginia, from Boston Properties for 20 years. Boston Properties is a good stock with a high margin of safety because of leases with companies such as Volkswagen.
2. The Digital Realty Trust (NYSE: DLR)
People who think remote work is the future of business will prefer the Digital Realty Trust (DLR) to Boston Properties.
The Digital Realty Trust owns 286 Data Centers in 24 countries on six continents. The Digital Realty Trust claims to be the largest owner of leased multitenant data centers. Digital Realty’s tenants include AT&T (T), IBM (IBM), Adobe (ADBE), Verizon (VZ), and Microsoft (MSFT) subsidiary LinkedIn.
Digital Realty can profit from remote work because its data centers support the cloud and host companies’ platforms. Digital Realty can avoid coronavirus’s effects because companies will need more cloud services to provide digital services to all the people working from home.
See the Chart in Real-time on TradingView
The companies will need more cloud services and more hosting. Thus, many employers could require more data center space, which the Digital Realty Trust can provide.
The Digital Realty Trust makes money from the cloud. It reported a $623.33 million quarterly gross profit and an operating income of $144.4 million on September 30, 2020.
Stock Rover reports that Digital Realty Trust’s profit margin grew to 20% in Q3 2022.
Digital Realty Trust’s data centers generate cash. The Digital Realty Trust reported a quarterly operating of $1.19 billion in Q3 2022.
3. IWG PLC (LON: IWG)
The International Workplace Group (IWG) offers shared and short-term office space at 3,300 locations worldwide. IWG is over 30 years old – it began in 1989 as Regus Group.
IWG claims to offer flexible workspaces at 3,300 locations in over 1,000 cities in over 110 countries. IWG (PLC) is a holding company based in Switzerland that owns 14 flexible workspace brands.
See the Chart in Real-time on TradingView
IWG’s brands include Regus, Spaces, HQ, Signature, No. 18, Basepoint Business Centres, Openoffice, BizDogjo, Stop&Work by Regus, The ClubHouse, too the Office Operators, Managed Office Solutions, Easy Offices, Meetinggo, and Rovva.
IWG is currently bleeding cash with a -35% profit margin, so avoid it at all costs.
Why You Need to Avoid IPOs
WeWork’s history shows why investors need to avoid initial public offerings. WeWork proves promoters base many IPOs on hype rather than profits.
I consider WeWork a classic example of a company that tried to use an IPO to raise money to avoid collapse. I suspect former Adam Neumann planned a WeWork IPO because he could no longer raise money from the capital markets.
Neumann hoped to generate enough cash to pay WeWork’s bills, cover payroll, and pay loans by selling stock. Softbank pulled the plug on WeWork’s IPO to prevent Neumann from wasting more money.
The WeWork IPO debacle shows why investors need to buy stock in established companies that make money instead of IPOs.
Are You Looking For Stock Investing & Trading Software? Here Are My Favorites.
My favorite software for trading is TradingView because it does everything well. It has backtesting, great charts, stock screening, and an active community of over 3 million people sharing ideas, plus a free plan available globally.
My favorite software for investing is Stock Rover, as it specializes in deep fundamental financial screening, research, and portfolio management. It is the ideal platform for dividend, value, and growth investing.
My favorite software for stock market news is Benzinga Pro, with its super-fast real-time news engine, squawk box, and news impact ratings.
My favorite AI trading software is TrendSpider which enables automatic pattern recognition for Trendlines, Candlesticks, and Fibonacci levels. Trade Ideas uses AI to generate high probability daily trading signals for auto-trading.
My favorite stock-picking service is Motley Fool Stock Advisor, which has a proven track record of beating the market with excellent stock research reports.
Read the Full Top 10 Stock Market Software Testing & Review
