WeWork looks to be another money-losing enterprise set to go public.
The office space-sharing company, which recently renamed itself The We Company, said in a filing with regulators that it now has 527,000 memberships across 29 countries. That's nearly double the 268,000 members it had in the prior-year period. More than 50% of its members are outside the U.S.
The company makes money by renting out its office space. It had $17.92 billion U.S. in long-term lease obligations as of June 30. While its initial members were mostly freelancers, start-ups and small businesses, WeWork said that its current membership represents global enterprises across multiple industries, including 38% of Global Fortune 500 companies.
In Canada, WeWork has 13 locations in Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto and Montreal, with another 10 sites announced or set to open soon.
However, WeWork, which started in 2010, had a loss of $689.7 million U.S. on revenue of $1.54 billion U.S. in the first six months of the year.
That compares with a loss of $628.1 million U.S. on revenue of $763.8 million U.S. in the first six months of 2018. Total expenses grew from $1.44 billion U.S. to $2.9 billion U.S.
WeWork plans to list under the ticker symbol "WE". The company did not disclose what platform it plans to trade shares on or the exact date when it will hold its initial public offering (IPO).
But its financial situation has led some analysts to suggest that WeWork’s IPO could end up being as disappointing as those of Uber and Lyft, the big ridesharing companies that are also unprofitable and whose IPOs earlier this year ended up being disappointing.
Among WeWork's biggest investors is Japanese technology conglomerate SoftBank, which has poured billions into the company. Other companies than own more than 5% of its shares include JP Morgan, We Holdings LLC and Benchmark.
