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Co-working office space provider WeWork has filed for bankruptcy<\/a> covering its locations in the US and Canada, and in a filing<\/a>, it said it had liabilities of between $10 and $50 billion. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n It\u2019s the latest turn for a company that went from being valued at $47 billion in January 2019 to unsuccessfully attempting an IPO later that year. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n That paperwork revealed, all in one place, the following things: that Neumann was\u00a0renting his own buildings to The We Company,<\/a>\u00a0that Neumann had secured loans from The We Company, and that to change its name to The We Company from WeWork, the company paid for naming rights from\u2026 Adam Neumann. It kind of started to feel like the point of The We Company, lofty language about \u201celevating\u201d one\u2019s \u201cconsciousness\u201d aside, was just to\u00a0give Adam Neumann money<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n The company eventually went public in 2021 via a special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC \u2014 if you\u2019re not familiar, we can explain<\/a>), and after struggling with increasing debts and hefty losses ever since, it lost almost 98 percent<\/a> of its stock valuation in the last year and shares were trading at 83 cents before a halt early Monday. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n In the press release announcing its Chapter 11 filing, the company says, \u201cAs part of today\u2019s filing, WeWork is requesting the ability to reject the leases of certain locations, which are largely non-operational and all affected members have received advanced notice.\u201d The company says it has reached restructuring agreements with creditors holding 92 percent of its debt.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n An increase in remote working following the covid pandemic is credited as a contributing factor in WeWork\u2019s fall from financial grace, as well as its massive operational costs.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n On October 30th, WeWork told the US Securities and Exchange Commission<\/a> that it had made agreements with creditors to temporarily postpone some of its debt payments. A Wall Street Journal<\/em> report last week<\/a> that WeWork intended to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy noted that since its founding, the company had amassed $16 billion in losses as of June 2023 and was still paying over $2.7 billion a year in rent and interest \u2014 over 80 percent of its entire revenue.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n