WeWork shares were suspended in New York yesterday as the £38bn office company teetered on the brink of collapse.
Stock trading was suspended on Wall Street before a bankruptcy filing was reported.
A notice on the New York Stock Exchange website said there was “pending” news about WeWork, which has suffered a 98 percent drop in its stock price this year.
Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal reported that WeWork was preparing to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy this week.
The company raised doubts in August about its ability to continue trading, with £2.3bn of long-term debt and £10.7bn of long-term leases.
On the brink: WeWork stock trading halted on Wall Street before bankruptcy filing reported
In September it began renegotiating almost all of its leases in a bid to cut costs.
The struggling company’s model of securing long-term leases for buildings and renting space on a short-term basis was severely disrupted by the shift to home-working.
WeWork has faced multiple scandals since its founding in 2010. Its attempted initial public offering in 2019 failed and it was bailed out by Japan’s Softbank.
WeWork went public in 2021 at a greatly reduced valuation of $9 billion.
