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Re:‘We were sold off’: WeWork’s staff face uncertain future ... by tootie on Friday November 22, 2019 @02:41PM (#21609246)
WeWork still has a ton of customers and rapid growth. I think their eyes were bigger than their mouths when it came to expanding offerings into unrelated nonsense and they were being extremely undisciplined in their spending, but the business is still extremely viable. The new leadership are taking a giant ax to all the excess to get it over with and then can rebuild from what is still a very strong base. It will take at least a year to recover, but I think they'll still hit profitability in the long run.
Re:‘We were sold off’: WeWork’s staff face uncertain future ... by arcticbull on Friday November 22, 2019 @02:42PM (#21609251)
They have customers who cost them money on an incremental basis. More customers, less money. They don't deserve to be valued any differently than like Regus, approximately 8X their annual profits or 1X their annual revenue. In this space, net margins are approximately 15%.

That values WeWork somewhere between -15.2B and 1.8B based on their 2018 performance data.

Measured against their competitors, they're still about 5X over-valued.

Re:‘We were sold off’: WeWork’s staff face uncertain future ... by ummonk on Friday November 22, 2019 @03:08PM (#21609518)
They have significantly higher brand value than Regus, which does merit a premium though probably not 5x.
Re:‘We were sold off’: WeWork’s staff face uncertain future ... by arcticbull on Friday November 22, 2019 @03:11PM (#21609544)
Brand value, maybe (even after this?) but they definitely haven't proven that they can turn that brand equity into higher margins. I believe if two offices were priced the same, someone might pick WeWork, but would people pay WeWork more than Regus for a comparable office? I'd imagine not much.
Re:‘We were sold off’: WeWork’s staff face uncertain future ... by rollerboi on Friday November 22, 2019 @03:31PM (#21609740)
If I could chime in here -

WeWork was way overvalued because they sold themselves to the public as a "tech company" that dabbled in real estate, not a real estate company that dabbled in tech. I mean, they had a lot of the same characteristics (such as crazy revenue growth while operating at a loss), but let's be clear: WeWork isn't a tech company, they're a real estate company in "tech clothes."

To circle this back to the parent comment - I still don't think they'll be profitable after drastically cutting spending. They might be able to keep the company afloat for a little bit. But their spending cuts target parts of the business that aren't under their "core competency" which is leasing office space on a short-term basis. So for example, they ax'd plans for WeLive or WeSchool (or whatever their kindergarten plans were called) as part of their turnaround plan.

WeWork has something like $17B in long-term lease liabilities across major cities in the US (and UK, I believe). They signed these long-term (10+ years I believe) leases with hopes of turning around and leasing them back to freelancers/businesses on a short-term (3-6mo) basis. If the economy slows down and demand for this variable-term space dries up, WeWork will still be on the hook for those $17B leases.

Re:‘We were sold off’: WeWork’s staff face uncertain future ... by ummonk on Friday November 22, 2019 @07:45PM (#21611603)
People would certainly pay a premium for WeWork offices, though it is unclear how much of WeWork’s superior offering could be retained while bringing costs under control.
Re:‘We were sold off’: WeWork’s staff face uncertain future ... by wmeredith on Friday November 22, 2019 @03:02PM (#21609458)
I can sell dollars for $0.90 each and have a tremendous amount of customers and growth.
Re:‘We were sold off’: WeWork’s staff face uncertain future ... by dreamcompiler on Friday November 22, 2019 @05:01PM (#21610592)
Ah yes. The Moviepass model.
Re:‘We were sold off’: WeWork’s staff face uncertain future ... by rollerboi on Friday November 22, 2019 @09:07PM (#21611949)
My first and last penny stock. Never again, because $HMNY.