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  • WeSuck: First Came the Hype; Then Came Adam Neumann’s Self-Dealing; then Came the IPO Scandal; Now Comes the Bankruptcy

WeSuck: First Came the Hype; Then Came Adam Neumann’s Self-Dealing; then Came the IPO Scandal; Now Comes the Bankruptcy

by Pam Martens and Russ Martens Wall Street on Parade

WeWork, the flexible-office-space company, is the quintessential proof that you can’t put lipstick on a pig forever. On Tuesday, the Wall Street Journal reported that WeWork “ is planning to file for bankruptcy as early as next week….”

On October 5, the credit ratings agency Fitch downgraded WeWork’s long-term debt deeper into junk bond territory after WeWork elected to withhold interest payments on its debt that were due Oct. 2. Year-to-date, the publicly-traded stock of WeWork has lost 98 percent of its value. Its shares were trading for pennies in August on the New York Stock Exchange when the financial wizards at the company came up with the idea to do a 1-for-40 reverse stock split in early September to put a little lip gloss on the pig. Yesterday, the stock closed at $1.11, which would mean that it actually closed at just under 3 cents were it not for the 1-for-40 reverse stock split.