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WeWork's main mission is to maintain its impressive growth rate, even as it continues to lose money, according to its latest quarterly financial results.
This is a strategy that will soon be tested by investors, as the company working in collaboration is moving towards a possible public offering. And WeWork could face a lot of skepticism if the rock market debut of Uber, another tech-savvy start-up, provides no guide.
WeWork announced Wednesday it lost $ 264 million in the first three months of the year. This is a little less than the loss recorded a year ago, but it reflects the company's desire to continue to inject money into its global expansion.
Growth is visible in its total revenues, which amounted to $ 728.3 million for the period, more than double the sales of the same quarter last year. Its locations also more than doubled, from 465,000 to 485 over the previous year.
And the company revealed that 46% of its revenue in the first quarter came from international sites.
WeWork is already one of the largest business owners, with the ambition of transforming the way people work. And it has added new areas of activity, some of which are tenuously linked to offices, such as a private school and an indoor wave pool.
On Wednesday, the company announced the creation of another company: ARK, a vehicle to invest directly in real estate hosting WeWork collaborative work centers. The company's executives believe that this will allow WeWork to take advantage of the value added by the buildings. by hosting its spaces.
It was this rapid growth that brought WeWork's private valuation to $ 47 billion. And this will probably be the main selling point if the company follows up on plans to continue listing.
Artie Minson, president of WeWork, recently said WeWork could become profitable if it slows growth. On Wednesday, he said in an interview that growth was evidence that the company was injecting money into productive uses, rather than burning it to survive.
"We are investing very clearly in a proven economic model," he said.
However, it seems that some investors are wary of a growth approach at any cost. Shares in the Uber and Lyft giants remain well below their I.P.O. prices, while investors have pushed back their high valuations. Uber is down more than 8 percent from its I.P.O. price, while Lyft is down almost 25 percent.
"No worries about this," said Adam Neumann, co-founder of WeWork and its managing director, this week about what Uber's offer could mean for WeWork's plans. "The public establishes the market."
Mr. Minson declined to comment on the schedule of WeWork's initial offer plans. But he said: "I think investors in the public markets, when they look at the returns on the invested capital, will be attracted to them."
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