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For years, WeWork’s parent company was defined by big spending as it relentlessly pursued rapid growth. Now, in the aftermath of a botched initial public offering attempt and the ouster of co-founder and chief executive Adam Neumann, it is facing a different reality: It needs to stop bleeding cash, the Wall Street Journal reported. We Co. said yesterday that it would file a request with the Securities and Exchange Commission to withdraw its IPO proposal. The company said that it is postponing the offering to focus on its core business and that it has “every intention to operate WeWork as a public company” but didn’t provide a time frame. To cut costs, the company’s new co-CEOs, Sebastian Gunningham and Artie Minson, are planning thousands of job cuts, putting extraneous businesses up for sale and purging some luxuries from the previous CEO, such as a G650ER jet purchased for more than $60 million last year.

A business group that owns an historic building in New Castle, Pa., has filed for bankruptcy protection to allow financial reorganization, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported. Olde Library Office Complex Partnership filed for bankruptcy under chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code, citing assets of $495,796 — including $350,000 for the value of the building — and liabilities of $294,248. Among the partnership’s creditors were Cedar Tree Management Corp., $87,357 for loans and management fees; Thomas J. George, $38,167; and Robert J. Bruce, $33,100, both for loans. The Olde Library Office Complex, which opened in 1906, had a number of uses over the years, including the New Castle Library until 1981. Addresses for both Cedar Tree Management and George were listed at the three-story granite building.

The Trump administration yesterday took a critical step toward releasing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from government control, agreeing to allow the mortgage giants to hold on to more of their profits, the Washington Post reported. The allowance is a move toward independence for the mortgage companies more than a decade after taxpayers bailed them out. It comes a month after the Trump administration unveiled a sweeping plan to remake the housing market that includes allowing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to operate as private companies again. With this step, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will be allowed to hold onto more capital, $25 billion and $20 billion respectively. That is still far less capital than the $100 billion the Trump administration estimates both companies and Congress still must sign off on to fulfill other measures envisioned by the Trump administration to remake the companies.

WeWork has only enough cash to last to maybe next spring as it is losing millions of dollars a day, Bloomberg News reported. It is confronting the grim situation of being shut out of the public stock and bond markets to raise new money. This situation for the office-sharing company comes days after a corporate upheaval that saw Adam Neumann, who founded the company nine years ago with a promise to change the world, was ousted as CEO. WeWork’s initial public offering, intended to raise urgently needed financing, was called off, until at least next year. And that, in turn, unraveled a $6 billion financing package. So now the two new co-CEOs named to replace Neumann — Sebastian Gunningham and Artie Minson — need to quickly figure out a way forward for a company that was once one of the world’s most valuable startups but has never made a penny in profit. That likely means seeking substantial new bank loans and private investments. It also may mean shedding thousands of jobs and tossing out Neumann’s grow-at-all-costs ambitions.

Major layoffs are all but inevitable at high-flying real estate startup WeWork after Adam Neumann succumbed to pressure today to step down as CEO and take the role instead of non-executive chairman of the company he cofounded nine years ago, TechCrunch.com reported. Sources say that the scope is likely to be massive, and includes some of of its newest business divisions, which these same sources anticipate will be jettisoned to get the company’s focus back on its core business. Speculation is that over time, up to half of WeWork’s 15,000 employees — 9,000 of whom have been brought on in the last two years — could be laid off to shore up the unprofitable company’s expenses. Neumann won’t have as much say in the matter, either. As part of his departure from the role, he has agreed to further reduce the power of his supervoting shares from an original 20 votes for every one vote that a regular investor in WeWork would receive to just three. His wife, Rebekah, a cofounder who is thought by insiders to have played a heavy role in the company’s original — and highly atypical — IPO prospectus, is also leaving the business. The Japanese conglomerate SoftBank currently stands to lose billions of dollars on its investment in the company — if it doesn’t wind up writing down nearly the entire investment.  Even an aggressive ratchet clause won’t do much to protect SoftBank if WeWork’s shares eventually sink on the public market.