A showdown is coming this week between big shareholders in WeWork, the troubled office-sharing startup, and its chief backer, SoftBank Group.
Last October Son Masayoshi, boss of the Japanese tech-investing group, rescued WeWork following its aborted IPO.
SoftBank injected $5bn of working capital【运营资本；周转资金】; it now owns 80% of the firm. WeWork’s business is deteriorating【恶化】 rapidly because of the spread of covid-19.
Mr Son may extricate【摆脱】 his firm from a deal it struck to hand $3bn to WeWork’s early shareholders including Adam Neumann, its founder.
SoftBank said last week that pending government investigations into WeWork invalidate the terms of that deal.
The move would also stop $1.1bn of funding from new debt going into the company.
WeWork shareholders who could lose out call this “completely unethical”.
With SoftBank’s own credit rating under pressure, Mr Son needs to prove his credentials on financial discipline【财经纪律】.
WeWork’s early investors may soon be out of pocket【手头没有钱；赔钱】.
Mar 30th 2020
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