WeWork Calls For Looser Loan Policies For Co-Working Tenants

A WeWork executive is calling for real estate lenders to be more flexible when it comes to their co-working tenants.

“It’s important for lenders to look at the fundamentals of each opportunity and not paint everything with a broad brush, because there’s a lot of noise,” Candice King, senior director of capital markets for WeWork’s real estate investment platform, known as ARK, said, according to Bloomberg.

She noted that WeWork has proven that lenders shouldn’t write off “co-working as a fad or a trend.”

“WeWork has proven there needed to be a change on how work and how office leases were going to function to serve a population that wanted more flexibility,” King said, who added that ARK’s equity partners are “very committed.”

Her comments come after the company made the decision late last month to suspend its initial public offering (IPO) after extensive losses were revealed, its Founder and CEO Adam Neumann stepped down and changes to the firm’s corporate framework were announced.

“We have decided to postpone our IPO to focus on our core business, the fundamentals of which remain strong,” WeWork Co-CEOs Artie Minson and Sebastian Gunningham said in a statement at the time. “We are as committed as ever to serving our members, enterprise customers, landlord partners, employees and shareholders. We have every intention to operate WeWork as a public company and look forward to revisiting the public equity markets in the future.”

As a result of the squashed IPO, a deal for at least one major London building mostly leased to WeWork fell apart, while a German landlord has considered cutting ties with the company.

PYMNTS has reported that WeWork’s debacle could have a large impact on companies going public, and will lead to a closer look at how those that seek to disrupt their verticals will accomplish that goal. WeWork has said in its filings that “technology is at the foundation of our global platform,” but in its rush to expand, it was leasing spaces on a long-term basis and renting them on a short-term basis.