WeWork Inc. never figured out how to make money. Former company CEO Adam Neumann did, Bloomberg News reported. The office-leasing business declared bankruptcy this week, two years after finally going public minus its infamous co-founder. It has $19 billion of liabilities and $15 billion of assets. Longtime investors, including Softbank Group Corp. and the Vision Fund, will add to the enormous losses they’ve already taken on the venture. “It has been challenging for me to watch from the sidelines as WeWork has failed to take advantage of a product that is more relevant today than ever before,” Neumann said in a statement. But a part of Neumann might be thankful he was forced out in 2019 following the company’s disastrous first attempt at an initial public offering. While battering his reputation, the exit left him with plenty of liquidity, and he’s still worth $1.7 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. To be sure, WeWork’s failure hurt Neumann’s wealth. When it went public in a merger with a special purpose acquisition company in 2021, Neumann had a fortune of $2.3 billion, according to the index, with nearly one-third in WeWork shares. They’ve since fallen more than 99%. But the deal also revealed how he managed to extract huge amounts of cash from WeWork in better times. The ex-CEO’s name was mentioned 197 times in a merger filing alongside eye-popping payouts, including a $185 million non-compete agreement, $106 million settlement payment and $578 million received for shares sold by Neumann’s We Holdings to SoftBank.
