money Softbank pulls the plug on WeWork bailout, giving co-founder Adam Neumann another black eye
Womp womp, Adam Neumann, co-founder and former CEO of WeWork.
Sofftbank announced that it has ended its $3 billion tender offer for WeWork shares “because certain conditions to the tender offer were not satisfied.”
A source first told Yahoo Finance that Softbank would not follow through with the bailout, which was designed late last year to help the struggling office space startup. The deadline for the tender offer was April 1. However, Softbank said remains committed to providing up to $5.45 billion in debt to WeWork to help boost its working capital, the source says.
A WeWork spokesperson declined to comment.
The biggest loser here is Neumann.
Neumann had been prepared to haul in $1 billion by tendering a slug of his stock to Softbank. That drew the ire of WeWork employees (and other investors) many of which are sitting on worthless stock options because of the botched leadership of Neumann.
Since October 2019, SoftBank and the SoftBank Vision Fund have committed more than $14.25 billion to WeWork to date, including $5.45 billion.
The Wall Street Journal first reported several weeks ago Softbank may not go ahead with the tender offer.
Brian Sozzi is an editor-at-large and co-anchor of The First Trade at Yahoo Finance. Follow Sozzi on Twitter @BrianSozzi and on LinkedIn.
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