WeWork's Co-Founder Is Trying to Buy the Company
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
> [softbank's offer to rescue wework] is the result of Neumann’s holdup power: Prior to the deal, Neumann is still the company’s controlling shareholder, and he could just say no to a deal that he didn’t like. That might completely evaporate his own wealth, but it would evaporate a whole lot more of SoftBank’s, and it kind of looks like SoftBank blinked first: In effect, the price of Neumann allowing SoftBank to rescue WeWork was that SoftBank had to hand Neumann a billion dollars for himself
wasn't one of the big points during the IPO failure that he borrowed money from the company, bought property and then leased it back to them?
it seemed jail-worthy at the time
In general, fraud and similar requires lying (either by omission or directly). Investors can’t complain if they were told everything up front, even if it was obviously a bad deal when they sober up later.
I bet his whole play is to just buy real estate low and sell it high. He makes up whatever story he needs to fund it.
I'll be amazed if Neumann manages to come out on top of this deal given how much incentive Softbank has to stonewall him. They've already been fooled two or three too many times by Neumann.