WeWork, the beleaguered coworking space company, has filed for bankruptcy, marking a stunning downfall for what was once the world’s most valuable startup, CNN Business reported. The chapter 11 announcement was widely expected after the company said last month that it was struggling to pay back its debt. The COVID-19 pandemic rocked WeWork as people started working from home instead of commuting into office spaces. The company’s stock lost more than 99% of its value, and the SoftBank-backed venture, which was privately valued at around $47 billion at its peak, was worth $45 million before its bankruptcy filing. WeWork said it would remain open and operational as it renegotiates its leases and debt obligations. The company said that investors holding 92% of the company’s secured debt have agreed to adjust the terms of their loans to help the company remain in business. Once a much-celebrated tech unicorn that promised to revolutionize the future of office work, a perfect storm of factors caused WeWork to start to come undone in the wake of a botched attempt to go public back in 2019. At the time, IPO paperwork revealed larger-than-expected losses and potential conflicts of interest with the company’s cofounder and then-CEO Adam Neumann, who was ousted in 2019 following pressure from investors. WeWork eventually went public roughly two years later at a much-reduced valuation of some $9 billion. By 2021, market sentiment, and the easy access to capital that helped prop up much of the startup world before the pandemic, had started to shift. Although WeWork billed itself as a tech company, some critics noted its core business was not in tech but was really in real estate. Even after going public, the company has struggled to turn the ship around.
