Adam Neumann returns $5.9M to WeWork after it paid the CEO for ‘We’ trademark
WeWork may speed up plans for IPO
Office space company WeWork is reportedly aiming to go public in September.
Adam Neumann, the CEO and co-founder of WeWork has returned $5.9 million worth of stock to his company, which had paid him the amount back in July.
According to an amended S-1 filing from Tuesday, WeWork’s parent company, The We Company, had paid its CEO the amount so the company could acquire the "We" trademark from WE Holdings LLC, where Neumann is a managing member.
However, after receiving criticism for the move, the money was returned to The We Company, though it continues to hold the trademarks, the amended filing said.
"At Adam’s direction, the issuance to WE Holdings LLC of the partnership interests was unwound and the partnership interests were returned to the We Company Partnership," the amendment said. "The We Company continues to hold all of the assigned rights to the "we" family trademarks."
Last month, WeWork filed to raise $1 billion in an initial public offering, though the ultimate offering is expected to be at least three times larger.
The office-sharing startup will list under the ticker symbol "WE," but has not yet disclosed the stock exchange on which it plans to list.
The filing is expected to go public as soon as this month, according to reports from August. WeWork, which rebranded as The We Company in January, was recently valued at $47 billion after SoftBank, the company’s biggest financier, invested an additional $2 billion in January. Its other major shareholders include Benchmark Capital and J.P. Morgan.
The workshare company reported revenues of $1.54 billion and a net loss of more than $900 million for the first six months of 2019. The company also reported that it had 527,000 members as of June 30, an increase of more than 90 percent from the year before.
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WeWork's "space-as-service" model has given way to several other sectors beyond workspace, as real estate becomes unaffordable for businesses. They have added communal housing complexes to their roster with WeLive business, as well as early education schools called WeGrow.
FOX Business’ Rachel Tesler contributed to this report.