The same week WeWork sued Softbank for reneging on its $3 billion bailout, there are reports that co-working giant has stopped paying its rent at certain locations.
According to Bloomberg, WeWork is renegotiating with landlords at unspecified locations and has hired brokerage firms JLL and Newmark Knight Frank to help it secure rent relief, profit-sharing agreements and other lease changes.
WeWork is a space-as-a-service with 739 locations across 140 cities and 37 countries. It has several operations in North Carolina, including offices in Raleigh, Durham and Charlotte.
It is unclear if any of those locations are affected.
WRAL TechWire understands that WeWork has been working with landlords since the fall as part of its long term five-year plan to cut costs, and that they are still paying rent to a significant number of landlords.
“WeWork believes in the long-term prospects of our locations and our relationships with landlords across the world,” the spokesperson said.
“Rather than implementing a company-wide policy on rent payments, we are individually reaching out to our more than 600 global landlord partners to work in good faith towards finding asset-specific solutions that benefit all parties involved.”
It comes at an uncertain time for the company. On Monday, WeWork’s board filed a lawsuit against SoftBank for backing out of its tender offer announced last October.
It is suing for “both a breach of contract and a breach of fiduciary duty to WeWork’s minority stockholders, including hundreds of its current and former employees” in the Delaware Court of Chancery.
During the coronavirus crisis, WeWork has kept locations across Europe and the US even with broad restrictions on nonessential business activity in many of its core markets.
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