WeWork - Anleihe (Seite 5)

[faultcode]

Antwort auf Beitrag Nr.: 61.579.473 von faultcode am 26.09.19 23:12:42

Not-Bremse

26.9.
WeWork halts all new lease agreements to stem losses
https://www.ft.com/content/0c545e8a-e0b3-11e9-b112-9624ec9ed…

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...WeWork is halting all new lease agreements with property owners as the lossmaking group tries to rapidly rein in costs, according to people briefed on the matter.

The move will rattle commercial property owners across the globe who rented to WeWork and upgraded the spaces in order for the group to re-let the buildings to its own customers. Landlords have been bracing for the possibility that WeWork, which has become the biggest office tenant in New York and one of the largest in London, could suspend its expansion.

The decision to put all new leases on ice comes as WeWork’s parent group, the We Company, readies to lay off thousands of its 12,000-plus employees in the coming weeks. On Thursday the company was planning to cut the jobs of roughly 20 employees with close ties to co-founder Adam Neumann, including some of its top managers, those who had been briefed said...

[faultcode]

Antwort auf Beitrag Nr.: 61.560.171 von faultcode am 24.09.19 21:23:47

WeWork Has Only A Few Months Of Cash Left... And Is Selling Adam Neumann's Gulfstream

26.9.
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/wework-has-only-few-months…

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...WeWork only has enough cash to last to maybe next spring as it is losing millions of dollars a day; what's worse, as Bloomberg warns, "It may be shut out of the public stock and bond markets to raise new money."

In short: WeWork may have just months left before it has to file for bankruptcy.
..
According to Business Insider, WeWork is set to sell the luxury Gulfstream that its cofounder Adam Neumann used to travel the world... "a symbol of the company's corporate-governance issues that have in part derailed its initial public offering." The company bought the Gulfstream G650 for $60 million last year.
...

[faultcode]

Antwort auf Beitrag Nr.: 61.542.096 von faultcode am 22.09.19 20:32:45

WeWork CEO Adam Neumann to step down amid controversy and retain chair role

24.9.
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/24/wework-ceo-adam-neumann-is-e…

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• WeWork CEO Adam Neumann will step down but retain his seat as non-executive chairman, the company confirmed Tuesday.
• Vice Chairman Sebastian Gunningham, a former Amazon exec, and CFO Artie Minson, formerly of AOL and Time Warner Cable, will take over as co-CEOs.
• The executive has been under pressure since WeWork released its S-1, amid concerns about its corporate governance and valuation.

...
WeWork said in a statement last week that it still plans to go public this year. However, several people familiar with the board’s thinking told CNBC that an IPO is now unlikely this year.

Neumann’s voting shares will be reduced in power from 10:1 to 3:1, a source confirmed to CNBC, meaning he will no longer have majority voting control. (FC: Wow! ) Neumann is the company’s largest individual stakeholder with about 115 million shares, and the ownership structure gave him a tremendous amount of control.

SoftBank chairman Masayoshi Son, who has invested billions of dollars in WeWork, led the charge to remove Neumann, CNBC has reported.


The falling out between the two didn’t happen overnight. SoftBank has been consistently frustrated with Neumann’s tendency to brush off advice, from pushing forward with an IPO to using phrases in WeWork’s S-1 such as “elevate the world’s consciousness” — a phrase SoftBank urged Neumann to eliminate but to no avail, sources previously told CNBC.

...

According to a report in The Information on Tuesday morning, WeWork execs have met with bankers to discuss cost reduction measures, potentially including layoffs of up to one-third of the company’s workers, or about 5,000 employees, as well as closing ancillary businesses such as its private grade school and computer programming school....

[faultcode]

SoftBank’s Masa Son is in favor of ousting WeWork CEO Adam Neumann

Uuupsi!

22.9.
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/22/softbanks-masayoshi-son-in-f…

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• SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son is said to be in favor of removing Adam Neumann as WeWork’s CEO, people familiar with the matter say.

• WeWork directors are planning a board meeting to discuss the details of removing Neumann for later this week, though WeWork executives aren’t aware of those plans yet, according to the people.


SoftBank Group’s Masayoshi Son is in favor of removing WeWork’s Adam Neumann as CEO, as the company’s directors plan to meet as soon as this week to propose Neumann step down, according to a person familiar with the matter. Spokesmen for both SoftBank and WeWork declined to comment.

While the details of a board meeting haven’t been scheduled, at least some members of the WeWork board that aren’t affiliated with SoftBank are aligned with Neumann to keep him as CEO, said two people familiar with the matter who asked not to be named because the discussions are private. SoftBank and its associated Vision Fund is WeWork’s largest external shareholder.

WeWork views Son’s move against Neumann as an effort to prevent the company from public, one of the people said. If WeWork doesn’t go public, it would prevent a huge writedown after SoftBank valued the company at $47 billion earlier this year. WeWork has had trouble getting a valuation of more than $20 billion with potential public investors, CNBC has reported.

The proposal follows a tumultuous week in which WeWork postponed its IPO roadshow, and an expose on Neumann in the Journal revealed he had once been forced to reschedule a private plane trip after the crew found marijuana. The CEO also expressed interest in becoming Israel’s prime minister and the president of the world, living forever, and becoming the world’s first trillionaire...


--> FC: da will wohl jemand den Visionär nicht mehr haben. Fällt dem Herrn Son aber reichlich spät ein. Vielleicht hat er ja auch oben den WSJ-Artikel gelesen, Beitrag Nr. 9, gelesen

[faultcode]

Clock ticking down on WeWork’s US$6bn loan after IPO delayed

19.9.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/clock-ticking-down-wework-us-…

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...WeWork has to complete a troubled US$3bn initial public offering (IPO) before the end of the year to maintain access to a crucial US$6bn loan, after delaying the filing this week amid mounting concerns about the company’s valuation.

The US$6bn loan is contingent on the equity issuance and WeWork has until December 31 to go public before losing access to the credit, which is key to the company’s expansion, sources said.

“The original expectation was September or October to launch the IPO,” a banking source said. "If they don't do it during that window the (loan) commitment will expire.”

The US office-sharing startup made a last minute decision this week to postpone an investor roadshow for its IPO that was anticipated to launch as early as September 16. The IPO was expected to value the company at US$10-12bn, a dramatic discount to the US$47bn valuation it achieved in January.

Parent We Company is hoping that it can kick off its IPO in October after updating its earnings with a strong third quarter performance, but runs the risk of weak demand towards year end, Reuters reported.


Lenders are locked in after committing to provide the loan, which was contingent on the IPO, but not the valuation. There are no extension options in the loan agreement and if WeWork fails to IPO by December 31, banks' commitments will expire.

If WeWork wants to extend the loan, it will have to approach lenders again, bankers said, which could be an uphill struggle as investors’ view of the loss-making company’s business model cools.

“We had to imagine this company with its momentum, with its US$3bn IPO proceeds, the bank debt and cash. It was hard to believe that we would have a large problem in the next five years to create a financial stress,” the banking source said.

Thirteen banks have provided the loan but asked for changes to the deal as doubts grew about WeWork’s valuation in order to get more comfortable with making large commitments as the company’s value fell.

Nine of the eleven banks invited in August to make commitments of US$750-800m signed up – JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Barclays, Citigroup, Credit Suisse, HSBC, UBS and Wells Fargo. Another four banks, Bank of Montreal, Mizuho, Credit Agricole and Deutsche Bank, subsequently joined the deal with commitments of US$250-500m.


Lenders called for additional protection on the US$6bn loan, which consists of a US$2bn letter of credit priced at 100bp over Libor, and a US$4bn delayed draw term loan, which is priced at 475bp.

A cash collateralization was added to the US$2bn letter of credit, which can require borrowers to deposit cash matching the size of the loan as collateral, and the deal was also secured on the IPO proceeds.

Access to the US$4bn delayed draw term loan was originally restricted with only US$1bn of the US$4bn available initially and WeWork had to maintain a minimum amount of liquidity.

Banks were expected to syndicate the US$4bn loan to the institutional market to further reduce their exposure, which now looks increasingly difficult, with a question mark hanging over the IPO that could jeopardize their fees.

“The bet was that the company would have enough incentive in terms of pricing and tenor to replace the delayed draw loan quickly in the bond or the institutional (term loan B) market,” a second banking source said.

Lenders stand to make 2-3% fees on the loan, which would bring in US$100-160m, and could make additional fees of 1-1.5% or US$60m by selling the debt to the institutional market.

The company’s IPO is still hanging in the balance, however, as SoftBank, the biggest external investor in WeWork, tries to protect a US$2.5bn investment. A sub-US$20bn valuation would force SoftBank to inject another US$1bn to anchor the US$3bn IPO to limit dilution.

“The assumption was that the equity values would have to come at a certain floor, in the 20s, otherwise it wouldn’t make sense to do the IPO,” the first banking source said. (Reporting by Michelle Sierra. Writing by Tessa Walsh. Editing by Jon Methven.)

[R-BgO]

Antwort auf Beitrag Nr.: 61.531.826 von R-BgO am 20.09.19 15:49:56

schon etwas älter, deswegen mehr einerseits/andererseits:

https://stratechery.com/2019/the-wework-ipo/

[R-BgO]

Antwort auf Beitrag Nr.: 61.531.235 von faultcode am 20.09.19 14:52:49

MUST read!

Schade, dass man die noch (noch) nicht shorten kann.

[faultcode]

Is WeWork A Fraud?

20.9.
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/wework-fraud

...

...am Ende:

The most disquieting element of this whole collaborative effort to deceive is that after perpetuating this fraud for so long, media outlets are now inviting these hustlers to media-sponsored ‘leadership’ events where they’re put on podiums to teach us how to become visionary’s whilst they have now made it unnecessarily more difficult for genuine entrepreneurs & technology companies to raise capital in future. The future is farther because of them.

[faultcode]

Antwort auf Beitrag Nr.: 61.503.512 von faultcode am 17.09.19 16:48:20

‘This Is Not the Way Everybody Behaves.’ How Adam Neumann’s Over-the-Top Style Built WeWork.

Sept. 18, 2019 12:23 pm ET
https://www.wsj.com/articles/this-is-not-the-way-everybody-b…
The skills that helped fuel We Co.’s breakneck growth are piling up as potential liabilities as the company prepares to go public

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After the group landed in Israel and left the plane, the flight crew found a sizable chunk of the drug stuffed in a cereal box for the return flight, according to people familiar with the incident. The jet’s owner, upset and fearing repercussions of trans-border marijuana transport, recalled the plane, leaving Mr. Neumann to find his own way back to New York, these people said.
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Mr. Neumann muses about the implausible: becoming leader of the world, living forever, amassing more than $1 trillion in wealth. Partying has long been a feature of his work life, heavy on the tequila.
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He relishes trips in private jets. Last year, We bought one for more than $60 million, people familiar with the sale said. Mr. Neumann has borrowed more than $740 million against his stock and has sold multiple hundred million dollars of shares, people familiar with those sales say, eliciting widespread criticism from analysts and Silicon Valley investors. These share sales weren’t disclosed in the IPO prospectus.
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Despite We’s growing size, its losses have been increasing at the same rate as revenue, creating a constant need for fresh investments. That is contrary to earlier projections from Mr. Neumann, who said the company wouldn’t need more money. (*)
...


(*) das kennt man ja von irgendwo her

[faultcode]

WeWork Mystery: Who Owns 75% of Its Junk Bonds?

10.9.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/wework-mystery-owns-75-junk-1…

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... To get a sense of how the market feels about the day-to-day drama coming out of WeWork, investors have little choice but to turn to its bonds.

After all, the company has no publicly traded shares — and, if the latest twist in its saga is to be believed, that might be the case for longer than anticipated. Executives of WeWork and its largest investor, SoftBank Group Corp., are discussing whether to shelve plans for an initial public offering, people with knowledge of the talks told Bloomberg News. On top of that, the office-rental company may rely on junk bonds for funding for the foreseeable future or even explore a whole-business securitization, a WeWork executive said, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Not surprisingly, WeWork’s junk bonds are tumbling. They fell below 100 cents on the dollar on Tuesday for the first time since the company filed to go public last month, with both the number of trades and overall volume reaching the highest in about a month. While a dip below face value doesn’t inherently spell doom, it’s nevertheless a sign that the bad news is starting to take its toll on investors.


But here’s the mystery: Who exactly are those investors?

We know who holds about 25% of WeWork’s $669 million in high-yield debt due 2025 because Bloomberg aggregates data from the most recent public filings. So, for instance, Lord Abbett & Co. held about $43.8 million as of May 31, or about 6.5%.

The second-largest holder is Allianz SE, which includes funds from Pacific Investment Management Co.; grouped together, it owns about $21 million, or a bit more than 3%. (FC: auch bei jedem Schrott mittlerweile dabei )

Three State Street Corp. exchange-traded funds hold a combined $9.6 million, or 1.44%. In the period through July 31, funds from TIAA-CREF and Ameriprise Financial Inc. pared back their exposure.


Still, that’s far from a complete picture. Only knowing who owns 25% of a company’s bonds is minuscule, even for the high-yield market. WeWork makes up about 0.05% of the Bloomberg Barclays U.S. Corporate High Yield Index. Here’s a sampling of other debt with nearly identical weightings and comparable maturities, and how much of its ownership is public:

Lamar Media Corp. bond maturing in 2026: 47% known Seven Generations Energy bond maturing in 2025: 72% known J2 Global bond maturing in 2025: 51% known Navient Corp. bond maturing in 2021: 57% known Antero Resources Corp. bond maturing in 2023: 67% known CVR Partners LP bond maturing in 2023: 64% known

Suffice it to say, bonds in the high-yield index with lower publicly reported ownership than WeWork are few and far between. So if active money managers, ETFs, pensions(1) and life insurers make up only a quarter of investors, who else is left?

Hedge funds would be a likely place to start looking. WeWork’s bond matures in less than six years and offers a yield of more than 8%. (At the height of the rally last month, it yielded closer to 7%.) The Bloomberg Barclays high-yield index has a comparable average maturity of 5.76 years, but its yield is just 5.6%. There’s been no indication that SoftBank and its affiliates own any of the securities, but they do own about 29% of WeWork stock, which shows just how much the Japanese conglomerate has riding on the company’s success.

Opportunistic investors appear to have jumped into WeWork’s bond at least twice this year. The bond soared after the company’s April 29 announcement that it filed paperwork confidentially with the Securities and Exchange Commission to hold an IPO and then again after it filed its S-1 prospectus in August. As I wrote in May, an IPO could give WeWork a cash injection that ought to cover interest for a while. It would also give bondholders a layer of protection in the capital structure because public shareholders would take the biggest hit if WeWork fizzles.

These big investors, whoever they may be, can’t be feeling too comfortable right now, given the state of the IPO. As for We Co., the parent of WeWork, becoming a regular presence in the capital markets, I’ll just say this: It’s one thing to be Netflix Inc. — whose stock price has more than doubled since the start of 2017 — and tap the high-yield bond market again and again (its bonds maturing in 2026 have 73.5% public ownership). It’s quite another to be WeWork, given that its IPO range could wind up closer to $20 billion, compared with the $47 billion valuation it had earlier this year...