We Company IPO: WeWork Announces Nasdaq Listing and Governance Changes

We work; Pictures of Jackal Pan / Getty; Samantha Lee / Business Insider

• WeWork has announced that it will list its shares on the Nasdaq index.
• The coworking start-up, struggling with profitability and governance issues, also revealed new constraints for co-founder and CEO Adam Neumann.
• The company disclosed changes to an amended SEC file.
• Read here all BI WeWork coverage.

  ---

WeWork announced that it would list its shares on the Nasdaq index and revealed new limits to its co-founder and CEO, Adam Neumann.

The coworking startup has chosen the techno-heavy stock index to host its much anticipated IPO. Under pressure to improve its governance, the company also announced that no member of Neumann's family would sit on the board of directors. Neumann will not reimburse any of the profits that it would have derived from its real estate transactions with its company.

WeWork disclosed the changes to an amended S-1 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Investors have expressed concern over Neumann, which controls WeWork's lion's share of the voting shares, has raised $ 700 million by selling and borrowing against shares in its company, and has even billed the company nearly $ 6 million for the brand "We". The role of her co-founder and wife Rebekah as the brand and impact leader also raised eyebrows.

Neumann has earned millions by buying properties and then renting them out at WeWork, the Wall Street Journal reported. The relationship raises a conflict of interest: he is encouraged to maximize rent and minimize costs as a homeowner, whereas as CEO he should want his company to pay less rent and have a property well maintained.

WeWork also addresses concerns about its business model and its path to profitability. While its revenue doubled to more than $ 1.5 billion in the first half of 2019, its losses increased 25 percent to $ 905 million, the IPO filing indicates.

Increasing doubts about WeWork's operations and governance, combined with a difficult macroeconomic environment, would have led the company to reduce its target public valuation to less than $ 20 billion, less than half of the company's private valuation. 47 billion that she had obtained earlier this year.