What major downside or any protections does SoftBank have with WeWork right now? Is there anything they are getting now or likely to get that doesn’t still have them $7B or so down the hole for WeWork?

The major thing is usually first dibs if the company sells for a lot less than the later valuations. In this case that doesn’t seem likely to happen with Softbank getting back most of their investment

That article says:

>The [ratchet] provision could grant existing shareholders $200 million to $500 million worth of additional shares, most of which would go to SoftBank, Kennedy said. For example, if WeWork’s market cap came in at less than $14.5 billion post-IPO, the total value of additional shares issued to SoftBank under the provision would be more than $400 million.

$400 million doesn't seem to be much of a compensation for losing billions of dollars in investments.

And that assumes that the company will IPO before it goes bankrupt (e.g., from investors pulling the plug on any future investments to cut their losses).

Yeah, it doesn't de-risk the investment as far as bankruptcy, but SoftBank's exposure is $10.5 bln, according to https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/07/business/softbank-wework.... so any valuation above $10 bln would be a break-even for them.