Office sharing startup WeWork will be going public after its parent company filed papers Wednesday for a stock sale, despite losing money amid rapid expansion.
The company will trade under the "WE" ticker, but officials declined to say how much they intend to raise with the share offering. Some news reports estimated the sum at between $3 and $4 billion. The New York-based We Company submitted its registration statement to the US Securities and Exchange Commission announcing a plan to raise funds to cover operating expenses and capital spending for a workplace it sees as increasingly globalized, urbanized and flexible.
The filing showed revenues quadrupled between to 2016 and 2018 to $1.8 billion.
But the company reported a loss of $1.6 billion last year, and through the first six months of 2019, it lost $690 million on $1.5 billion in revenues.
The co-working company, which calls itself a pioneer in the "space-as-a-service" business, launched in 2010 and now has over 528 locations in 111 cities across 29 countries, according to the SEC filing.
Growth accelerated in the aftermath of the financial crisis and has been supported by mobile technologies that have allowed people to make their work portable.
The spaces, decorated with bright colors and industrial themes, offer free coffee and renters are provided office supplies and utilities. "When we started, it was obvious to us that the solutions available in the market were not meeting the needs of the modern workforce," the company said in the filing. "Rather than a static solution locked to a long-term lease, we imagined the future of work: dynamic, well-designed workspaces for less, a suite of value-added products and services, all powered by data, analytics and deeply integrated technology that helped our members unlock creativity and productivity."
Comments
Comments are closed.