The Year of the IPO: We Work

When I joined Secfi, one of my first tasks was to find a co-working space to set-up as our first San Francisco office. We toured a lot of places and eventually ended up settling at the Spaces on 3rd and Mission. Spaces is a subsidiary of Regus.

For those that are unfamiliar, Regus was the original WeWork. Many people mistakenly believe that WeWork started the co-working and virtual office trend, but Regus was doing since the 1980s. WeWork was founded in 2010 and has unprecedented growth while riding on the coat tails of popular millennial trends: mobile workspaces, remote work, and start-ups.

I wasn’t surprised yesterday when WeWork announced that their IPO is not garnering enough interest and their IPO is going to cut their valuation by more than half. Burning cash aside, the company has been controversial to say the least. The company and CEO Adam Neumann seem to have generated quite the number of headlines in 2019.

• WeWork’s CEO Makes Millions as Landlord to WeWork

• Adam Neumann Returns $6 million He Squeezed From WeWork

Couple this with the underwhelming IPOs of Uber and Lyft earlier this year, it’s no surprise that there hasn’t been enough interest during the WeWork roadshow. Investors seem to be wanting to stay away and for good reason.

Investors can point to the predecessor of WeWork for a historical view. Regus filed for bankruptcy in 2003 in the wake of the dot-com bubble. I have no idea how the market will react if and when WeWork goes public, but for their sake, let’s hope this bull market continues.