WeWork CEO gives back $5.9M from 'We' trademark after criticism

Re:WeWork CEO gives back $5.9M from 'We' trademark after cri... by paxys on Wednesday September 04, 2019 @04:10PM (#20880927)

Here's something I don't understand - the overwhelming consensus among analysts, newspapers/websites, blogs, internet commenters etc. seems to be that this company is overvalued and not worth even close to what they want to IPO at. It is not close to profitability and may never be. Not to mention all the borderline scams and shady dealings the company and CEO is involved in.

Yet, we know that on IPO day both retail and institutional investors are going to ignore all these red flags and still buy, and the company is still going to be valued at $40-$50 billion. Why is that? Why doesn't everyone just stay away?

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Re:WeWork CEO gives back $5.9M from 'We' trademark after cri... by chrisseaton on Wednesday September 04, 2019 @04:25PM (#20881050)

Everyone who buys thinks it’s undervalued, by definition. They’d probably tell you they’re buying because they know they can sell for more tomorrow to someone else who thinks it’s undervalued, but doing that means that they also think it’s undervalued no matter what they say.

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Re:WeWork CEO gives back $5.9M from 'We' trademark after cri... by my_usernam3 on Wednesday September 04, 2019 @04:20PM (#20881014)

> we know that on IPO day both retail and institutional investors are going to ignore all these red flags

Do we know that? I'm just over here eating popcorn.

While I do agree with what you believe is the "overwhelming consensus", there are legitimate reasons to think WeWork is bullish too. Here's an article I think does a good job representing both beliefs: https://fortune.com/2019/09/01/wework-ipo-stock-should-i-buy...

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Re:WeWork CEO gives back $5.9M from 'We' trademark after cri... by aresant on Wednesday September 04, 2019 @04:16PM (#20880974)

It's one of two things:

1) That the consensus is wrong and this is an amazing, misunderstood business. Stratechery has the most balanced view IMO of this possibility - https://stratechery.com/company/wework/ - in this case you will likely be able to value buy the stock and hold for long term gain.

2) That the bankers selling to retail & institutional investors have a giant, incumbent incentive tied to IPO fees, debt origination fees, and of course actual debt repayment. As a result they are going to sell the WeWork stock and because what's good for the goose is good for the gander. If this is the accurate case WeWork will likely achieve their IPO guidance and be a good long term short.

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Re:WeWork CEO gives back $5.9M from 'We' trademark after cri... by whatok on Wednesday September 04, 2019 @04:24PM (#20881038)

I think the general consensus is that WE is probably going to go public at a discount to the latest round. UBER was talked at like 100bn+ before they actually IPOed.

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Re:WeWork CEO gives back $5.9M from 'We' trademark after cri... by CydeWeys on Wednesday September 04, 2019 @04:34PM (#20881137)

The overall stock market is huge though, and WeWork just needs to convince a tiny number of investors (relative to the market as a whole) that they're worth speculating on.

Most people will stay away. But not everyone. And that not everyone may well be enough.

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Re:WeWork CEO gives back $5.9M from 'We' trademark after cri... by disjhshava on Wednesday September 04, 2019 @04:52PM (#20881293)

There's a lot of investor money out there and not a lot of good investment opportunities. You only need to convince a small % of investors to raise billions.

Also, shorting this stock is going to be expensive.

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