It took a lot longer than expected, but WeWork is finally set to go public through a merger with a special purpose acquisition company — and at a huge discount to what the startup was once worth.
WeWork announced Friday morning that is merging with BowX Acquisition, a blank check firm known as a SPAC, in a deal that values the office sharing company at $9 billion.
WeWork has a major presence in North Carolina with operations in Raleigh, Durham and Charlotte.
“A special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) is a company with no commercial operations that is formed strictly to raise capital through an initial public offering (IPO) for the purpose of acquiring an existing company,” according to Investopedia. They also are known as “blank check” compaines.
The company was once valued at $47 billion, making it one of the most valuable unicorn startups in the world. But WeWork shelved plans for an initial public offering in 2019 after questions about corporate governance emerged, eventually leading to the ouster of controversial co-founder and CEO Adam Neumann.
Top WeWork investor SoftBank wound up taking an even bigger stake in WeWork as part of a bailout package
