WeWork's Neumann kicked out of billionaires club. Can he get back in?
WeWork’s ousted CEO Adam Neumann has lost his billionaire status, according to Forbes.
Prior to stepping down as CEO this year from the communal office-sharing company he co-founded in 2010, Neumann had been moving up the rarefied ranks of the World’s Billionaires List compiled by the publication, amassing a fortune that grew to as much as $4.1 billion.
The latest update, however, slashes his estimated net worth to a comparatively meager $600 million.
WeWork didn't immediately return a request for comment from FOX Business.
Neumann’s seemingly swift fall comes as his company struggles to drum up investor enthusiasm for an enterprise once valued at $47 billion that spread trendy communal office spaces across the globe while piling up massive losses. Despite relinquishing the title of CEO, he remains non-executive chairman of the company.
Wall Street began raising questions about We Company, as the parent organization is known, in the buildup to a public stock offering this year. The company's annual loss widened from $429 million in 2016 to $1.6 billion at the end of last year, a period in which it raked in $1.8 billion.
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WeWork leases buildings and divides them into office spaces to sublet to members, who include small businesses, start-ups and freelancers who can’t afford permanent offices. But with location operating expenses, mostly payments to its landlords, eating up some 80 percent of revenue, the firm has been heavily reliant on cash infusions from private investors.
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Neumann first appeared on the Forbes’ list in 2016, with a net worth of $1.5 billion, when he was just 36 years old. At that time, private investors valued his company at more than $10 billion.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.