WeWork will list actions on Nasdaq, make changes to governance

The moves are part of a We Co. plan, as the company is officially known, to start officially marketing the shares to investors next week, before the first trading day of the week of September 23, said knowledgeable people.

The company is expected to set a preliminary price range next week and we, its advisers, are aiming for a valuation that could fall below $ 20 billion, as previously reported by The Wall Street Journal. This is significantly less than the $ 47 billion valuation raised at a fundraiser earlier this year, reflecting skepticism about the company's governance and its ability to reverse significant losses.

We, co-founder and CEO Adam Neumann, control the majority of the company's voting rights through special shares whose business has recently been strengthened.

His wife, Rebekah Neumann, also co-founder of We, is one of three nominees to sit on a committee that would choose Mr. Neumann's successor if he died or was permanently disabled in the next 10 years.

Potential investors have also questioned Mr. Neumann's sales of hundreds of millions of dollars of We shares and loans of more than $ 740 million related to his shares in the company, according to Wall Street Journal reports. regulatory filings.

We, the officials and their advisors, have taken part in a series of intense meetings in recent days, as the question arose as to whether the company would accept this offer, one of the most important of which could be a record year for new issues. But the choice of the place of listing, coupled with the expected reduction in valuation and redesign of governance, shows that the company decided to go ahead, even if it meant that the recovery would have less important than expected.

The $ 6 billion borrowings are an important motivator, but we agreed that are conditioned to raise at least $ 3 billion.

The frenzy of this year's IPOs sparked a fierce battle between the New York Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq, which see major IPOs as key opportunities for franchising that can help attract customers, become tools essential marketing and build new sources of trading income. We's list was considered one of the biggest prizes of the second half after the Nasdaq landing

Lyft
Inc.

and the New York Stock Exchange has landed

Uber Technologies
Inc.

and the direct list of

Slack Technologies
Inc.

in the first half.

In the coming weeks, Peloton Interactive Inc. plans to make its debut on Nasdaq and Endeavor Group Holdings Inc., the parent company of Hollywood's largest agency, is expected to begin trading on the NYSE.

We waited an unusually long time to decide on an exchange. Generally, large companies select one at the time of their public filing for an IPO. Some companies are waiting longer, but the fiercest about the IPOs of recent years have chosen a trading platform much earlier than expected, just days before the start of the investment tour, as a sign of delay. -scenes scrambles to keep the list on track.

Despite investor questions and concerns, Mr Neumann said privately that he was determined to go ahead with the IPO.

In early-week conversations with the leaders of

SoftBank Group
Corp.

, the company's main shareholder, Mr. Neumann, said he does not expect anything fundamental to change over the next year and that he thinks that the most important is now getting a significant cash injection to be able to continue its expansion plans, people familiar with the topic said.

Write to Maureen Farrell at [email protected] and Corrie Driebusch at [email protected]