WeWork IPO: CEO Neumann disembarked

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Adam Neumann has shown that he could capitalize on troubled times about a decade ago by exploiting the demand for workspace of those who were fired at the time. Following the financial crisis, WeWork was transformed into a global brand with a balance sheet of $ 47 billion.

Yet his plan to take WeWork's parent company, We Company Public, turned against him, his company becoming the flag-bearer of a bubble in venture capital fundraising that pushed some companies into start to unsustainable evaluations.

We Company plans to reduce its valuation by $ 10 billion to that of $ 47 billion announced during a private fundraising in January supported by the Japanese group SoftBank, announced Friday a familiar firm.

This sharp drop is due to investors' criticism of the increase in losses and Neumann's strong hold on the company.

Neumann, 40, is under pressure to proceed with the Initial Public Offering (IPO) to raise funds to ensure the continuity of WeWork's business. The New York-based company leases a workspace to short-term contract customers, even though it pays rent for itself under long-term leases.

Neumann is by far the biggest crisis of his career, after arriving in New York at the age of 22, after serving in the Israeli army.

He failed in several projects before selling his first firm, Green Door, for $ 300,000 with his trading partner Miguel McKelvey a decade ago. Neumann and McKelvey used the proceeds of this sale to launch WeWork. His first clients visited the Lower Manhattan site, just off Chinatown, in February 2010, after being seen in Craigslist.

The community was the driving force behind the new venture, launched at a time when millions of people who had lost their jobs during the 2008 financial crisis were looking for a flexible workspace.

"It quickly became clear that people were ready for a new approach to work, not just their workspace," Neumann said in a blog post in 2016, marking the launch in Berlin of the 100th WeWork site.

Neumann's parents divorced when he was a child and he moved 13 times while he was a child and teenager. He lived for a while in Indianapolis, where his mother, an oncologist, completed his medical residency. He called his childhood difficult because of the movements.

They then returned to Israel where he lived in Kibbutz Nir Am, near the Gaza Strip, before serving in the Israeli army, which, according to him, taught him to be taller than him.

Neumann's experience in a kibbutz and McKelvey's experience in a town of five mothers in Oregon was cited as one of the reasons they were fooled. McKelvey is an architect with the title of head of culture at WeWork.

Neumann, now a billionaire and majority in We Company, also stated that he thought that money was the purpose of his life until he met his wife Rebekah, a cousin of the actress Gwyneth Paltrow.

Rebekah Neumann, former chief brand manager, is co-founder of WeWork. She is also a filmmaker and introduced Neumann to Kabbalah, a form of Jewish mysticism that attracted celebrity enthusiasts. They have five children.

RAISE WORLD AWARENESS

The rapid success of the shared workspace validated the global community envisioned by Neumann, where people can accomplish more together than alone, or in the words of the company's famous mantra: "Lead a life, not only."

Neumann arrived in New York City in 2001, where he lived with his Israeli model, Adi, and launched a handful of failed businesses, including women's shoes and a line of baby clothes with knee pads, called Krawlers.

"When I arrived in New York, I was angry at my story," Neumann said at a luncheon at the New York Stock Exchange in June 2017, adding that he had learned that you deserved nothing. "I became happy. My past has helped make me what I am today, "he said.

Neumann, described as critical in defining WeWork's strategic direction and execution priorities in the ranking of applications for participation, may seem a bit crazy. In the 2016 blog, he said that the future of cities would require a healthy mix of 70% magic and 30% logic.

We also stated in its report that its mission is to educate the world and that as a grassroots society, it is committed to maximum global impact, a vision that Neumann endorses.