https://fortune.com/2019/09/01/wework-ipo-stock-should-i-buy/
- For companies, washing the dishes, fixing the WiFi, replacing the lightbulbs, or other so-called back office operations, are generally not things they excel at.
- "For companies, [building an office] is not a core competency of theirs," said Industrious CEO Jamie Hodari.
- WeWork's prospectus emphasizes that 80% of members reported increased productivity after joining, and 78% of enterprise members say WeWork helped attract and retain talent.
- The company has stepped hard on the accelerator when it comes to new locations, adding over 300 between 2016 to 2018, which could put those losses in context
- he problem? It's mostly guesswork—conjecture rather than fact. The filing fails to disclose whether WeWork locations for instance are profitable after a certain number of months, as WeWork's filing is light on location-specific detail. But more on that below.
- WeWork is effectively targeting all office spaces, per its S-1. The company is already in 111 cities, and plans to boost that figure to 280. From there, it is targeting a population of 255 million potential customers
- WeWork skeptics often point to a competitor that is profitable yet valued at significantly less, IWG, as an argument that investors have poured too much capital into the company. That Luxembourg-based business for instance posted revenue of $3.4 billion and income of $149.7 million in 2018; WeWork posted revenue roughly half of that at $1.8 billion in 2018 and a loss of $1.9 billion. Yet WeWork was last valued at $47 billion, while IWG commands less than a tenth of that at $4.5 billion in market capitalization.