WeWork on Wednesday told employees that the company has plenty of access to capital and that it will keep its co-working buildings open so that its members can keep their own businesses running, according to an internal memo obtained by Axios.
The big picture: This comes after reports that WeWork's largest shareholder may bail on a $3 billion tender offer it had agreed to last fall, and as the coronavirus pandemic has made co-working less palatable to those seeking to follow social distancing recommendations.
Below is the full memo, signed by WeWork CEO Sandeep Mathran and executive chairman Marcelo Claure (who also is a top SoftBank executive).
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WeWork Team,
When we joined WeWork, we emphasized that while this would not be an easy ride, we would ultimately be a stronger company in the end. Today, we want to clarify a few things.
The press is mischaracterizing SoftBank’s commitment to WeWork based upon a tender offer update to shareholders SoftBank sent yesterday. That update reminded shareholders that certain conditions need to be satisfied for the tender offer to be completed. The conditions were agreed to last year. Certain conditions have not yet been met and Softbank has communicated that it expects all agreed-upon conditions to be satisfied before the tender is completed. Those are the facts. But more importantly, the Softbank tender offer has no bearing on Softbank’s funding commitment to WeWork itself and does not impact our current liquidity and financial strength of the business.
The tender offer is to WeWork shareholders – not to fund the WeWork business.
In terms of the actual funding of our business, let us explain each component: Softbank funded...