Signage is seen at the entrance of the WeWork offices on Broad Street in New York.
David ‘Dee’ Delgado | Bloomberg | Getty Images
WeWork’s parent company is considering slashing its IPO valuation to less than $20 billion, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday.
At that level, WeWork would be worth less than half the $47 billion private valuation assigned to it in January. Since WeWork unveiled its IPO prospectus last month, the company has cut its IPO valuation in response to weak demand among investors.
WeWork, which rebranded to The We Co. earlier this year, is planning to embark on a roadshow as soon as this week to gauge investor demand, sources told CNBC’s Leslie Picker. However, those sources described the plans as “tentative” and said the roadshow could be pushed back to later this year or even 2020.
The IPO itself is also up in the air, as the company has been meeting with advisors and shareholders about whether to move forward with going public later this month, sources told CNBC’s Alex Sherman. WeWork has yet to reach a decision about shelving the offering.
The company continues to face criticism around its corporate governance, particularly how WeWork CEO Adam Neumann controls a majority of the voting rights of the company, as well as its ballooning losses and a controversial trademark payment, which involved $5.9 million worth of stock paid to Neumann to acquire the trademark “We.” Neumann later returned the stock payment.
–Leslie Picker and Alex Sherman contributed to this report.
