Adam Neumann, the former chief executive and co-founder of WeWork, recently submitted an offer to buy the bankrupt co-working company for more than $500 million, according to people familiar with the matter.
It wasn’t immediately clear how Neumann would finance the acquisition, the people familiar with the matter said.
Neumann has been trying to regain control of WeWork after he was ousted five years ago by the board. Last month, Neumann’s lawyers sent a letter to WeWork’s advisers saying he was joining Dan Loeb’s Third Point hedge fund and other investors in exploring a bid for the company.
Third Point isn’t part of Neumann’s bid, the people familiar with the matter said Monday.
A fund spokeswoman previously said the hedge fund hadn’t made a commitment to participate in any transaction and had only preliminary conversations with Flow Global, Neumann’s real-estate company.
WeWork, which had been valued as high as $47 billion before it filed for Chapter 11 in November, remains focused on its restructuring effort to emerge from bankruptcy in the second quarter as a “financially strong and profitable company,” a company spokesman said.
“As we’ve said previously, WeWork is an extraordinary company and it’s no surprise we receive expressions of interest from third parties on a regular basis,” the WeWork spokesman said. “Our board and our advisers review those approaches in the ordinary course, to ensure we always act in the best long-term interests of the company.”
WeWork filed for bankruptcy after struggling to stay afloat in the office real-estate market downturn. It has been trying to renegotiate existing leases with landlords to reduce its operating costs, while rejecting ones that aren’t profitable, but the talks have been slow-moving.
WeWork has said it is running low on cash and its lawyers have said they are in negotiations with lenders to finance its continuing restructuring efforts.
Neumann said in his February letter to WeWork that the financial crunch it faces in bankruptcy was due to management’s lack of ability to seek options for financial support. Neumann also said that he wasn’t able to obtain the information he needed to submit a bid, and that he had approached the company as early as December.
WeWork has told parties interested in bidding for the business that it plans to hand control over to its creditors after it restructures itself into a more profitable business, The Wall Street Journal reported earlier.