WeWork sues SoftBank over canceled $3B tender offer

Post by toomuchtodo » Tue, Apr 07, 2020, 10:55 PM UTC

eldavido wrote: post #106

dreamcompiler wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They were basically insolvent when the extra Softbank cash failed and the IPO failed. And that was before COVID-19. But you make a good point: They owe so much in leases they have huge negotiating power, and with COVID-19 they probably have even more since nobody's renting space right now.

If you have some time, read a few books about how huge debt crises get resolved. It's fascinating. My friend Drew is a huge "bankruptcy geek" and eats this shit up. A good starter book: "This Time It's Different", often referred to as "Rheinhart and Rogoff" by the authors names. https://www.amazon.com/This-Time-Different-Centuries-Financi... - great overview of how many nation-state debt crises got resolved. In gener…

Post by csomar » Tue, Apr 07, 2020, 11:17 PM UTC

llsf wrote: post #13

I read that Wework had $4B in the bank at the beginning of the year. Also they are actively trying to reduce their own rent up to 30% from their landlords. And at the same time Wework gives up to 50% discount to its own large tenants, so they can stay during this hard time. No idea how long it can operate like that. If Wework had to crash, I am concerned for the whole US commercial real-estate. Wework is renting so m…

Post by grogenaut » Wed, Apr 08, 2020, 3:31 AM UTC

thehappypm wrote: post #93

WeWork has an existential issue in that the entire workforce will emerge from this with at least 2 months of remote work experience. Many, many employers and individuals will realize that remote is OK, and in fact has a ton of benefits.

Post by jzl » Wed, Apr 08, 2020, 4:15 AM UTC

bruceb wrote: post #3

Not surprising, was wondering how SoftBank seemingly walked away so easily. If you are Softbank do you use this Covid crisis to back WeWork in to a corner even if their suit is legitimate as they might run out of cash before it reaches the courts? From what I understood SoftBank already owns a majority of WeWork so how does the company they own, suing them work?

Post by RHSeeger » Wed, Apr 08, 2020, 6:11 AM UTC

saghm wrote: post #40

dheera wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Conflict-of-interest is a human-invented notion that is rooted in the idea that the world is black and white, and it must be one or the other. That isn't the nature of how the rest of the universe operates. All that is needed is a weighting factor between the two loss functions (in this case, obligations) to deal with cases like this, and to make the policy (in this case, term sheet) continuous and differentiable as…

> Conflict-of-interest is a human-invented notion That doesn't seem like a particular relevant critique here; it's not like naturally occurring corporate boards or some universal law of fiduciary duty are things we've observed outside of humanity. Why shouldn't human-invented heuristics apply to situations that as far as we know only occur in human interactions?