You mean, we’re (gasp) Influencers??!?
At least the orange is going up on the part of the building seen from the Glenwood approach!
Looking for the brightside- I like it.
There’s certainly a lot of product placement going on in here…
Is anyone privy to WeWork’s occupancy in One Glenwood? Looks like the company has officially overextended itself in big markets, but I would imagine they’d continue to do well here considering office absorption rates
I think they’ll keep that lease. SoftBank’s take over has everything to do with trying to get some of their investors money back, since WeWork probably owns very little actual real estate for them to sell, the existing and future lease agreement will have to do. They’ll probably have to dump some locations from the more expensive cities. What a mess. This is what happens when you agree to a $47B valuation on something that’s losing $3B a year.
I just don’t get who did the valuation, and how they did it. I get their is a premium on tech start ups, but the multiples should not have given this valuation at all.
That’s the problem with SoftBank who’s vision fund that funds WeWork is $100B in size, backed by Saudi and UAE investors. They literally have money to burn. And their involvement in things like Uber and Wag have just driven up their valuations, mostly because they are the elephant in the room. If you look at what actually has worked out for them, really just their investment in Alibaba.
That’s further compounded by an issue where these days these new tech companies are using IPO to fund profitability, rather than to fund growth, which is what traditionally IPOs are used for. (this is a big problem as fundamental issues in the business model itself, like WeWork, don’t get exposed until it’s too late) So by the time these companies get to IPO, they are already huge as they have taken billions from investors. And the only way to make that happen is to create a big valuation, otherwise the founders will be left with nothing as they’d be diluted. If you look at Uber, Tesla in a sense, WeWork, their cash generation (0 as they are not profitable), doesn’t at all compare to their lofty valuations.
What these companies are trying to do is inherently cutting the public market out of the growth phase, but still asking the public market to pay for it and wait for the profitability / cash flow that may never come. Wall Street is starting to wise up, and hence they balked at the high valuation of WeWork, Uber, and all of these high profile underwhelming IPOs this year.
We work is a real estate company in a tech company disguise. The founder is walking out with a $1.7 Billion (with a B) golden parachute. What a scam.
I would not be surprised to see another Dotcom blowup in not to distance future. So many “Unicorns” running around that are losing BILLIONS with no real plans on how to make a profit.
@RobertB The valuation was based on Softbank’s investment and the % of the company the got. Clearly, it was way out of whack. Softbank got taken, which is why they stepped in and bought the whole (most) of it, trying to salvage something of their investment. They are suppose to take over the majority of the Lord&Taylor department store in mid-town Manhattan, but the NY Post reports they are backing out of that deal.
@scotchman I am afraid you are right. I read an article earlier in the week about the lifestyle of some Millennials getting a LOT more expensive since so many of the companies they use regularly are losing big money - Lyft, Uber, Doordash, etc. Either they start charging more or they are going under. Its 1999 all over again!!
Yeah, he made off like a bandit. The issue is while he financially has been diluted down, his voting power on the shares he own still allowed him control. For an effective takeover, SoftBank had to buy not just the shares but the voting rights. Of course he negotiated that the voting power comes at a premium above the regular common share price (as it typically does), and SoftBank had to pay it as the alternative is to let the investment sink.
That being said, SoftBank is just as much to blame for the fiasco as the management team. They should’ve never agreed to that valuation in the first place. So don’t feel too sorry for them. Not only that, they are starting another $100B fund, so they haven’t learned.
That is how I perceived all co work places. An office landlord who was willing to lease chunks in an office environment with some shared components.
Softbank didnt get taken. They were in on the whole absurd evaluation from the get go. It’s that they were the most exposed when the people who usually fell in line, with the forward thinking of “yes, I’ll buy in now to make more of the suckers further down the road”, drew the line in the sand, that this is getting just entirely ridiculous. Softbank had all the numbers and facts before anyone else did. They saw the writing on the wall, but thought that the market was going to blindly fall in line, like the market has been doing for all these ridiculously valued and unprofitable SaaS companies as of late.
The orange vertical stripe on the hotel is finally up, and there’s a lot of progress in the lobby and bar area.
Also, foundations going in for the new office building.
This is a new concept, Hotel Veneer
I am happy that at least we have a hotel covering part of the parking deck
They hinted at a new building facing Hargett St too.
I did a Phase I on that property several years ago (for a project that was never built) and hope there are future plans for the Hargett Street side. I will be right across from RUS Bus.