NEW YORK, November 15, 2021 – WeWork Inc. (NYSE: WE) (“WeWork”), one of the leading global flexible space providers, today reported financial results for its third quarter ending on September 30, 2021.
- Total revenue for the third quarter was $661 million, an 11% increase compared to total revenue of $593 million in the prior quarter.
- Adjusted EBITDA loss was $356 million for the third quarter, a $93 million improvement relative to the prior quarter Adjusted EBITDA loss of $449 million.1
- WeWork ended the third quarter with pro forma cash and unfunded cash commitments of $2.3 billion, including $477 million of available cash on hand as of September 30, 2021, $1.2 billion of net proceeds from the business combination with BowX, $550 million currently available under the Senior Secured Notes facility, the repayment of the $350 million secured commercial paper facility and $450 million currently available under the $1.75 billion letter of credit facility.
Company Operating Results
- As of September 30, 2021, WeWork’s global real estate portfolio consisted of 764 locations across 38 countries, supporting approximately 932,000 workstations and 546,000 physical memberships.
- WeWork’s consolidated real estate portfolio included 631 locations across 33 countries, supporting approximately 766,000 workstations and 432,000 physical memberships.
- Consolidated gross desk sales totaled 155,000 in the third quarter, or 9.3 million square feet sold. Consolidated new desk sales totaled 84,000 in the third quarter.
- Physical occupancy continued to trend upwards to 56% across consolidated operations as of the end of September, up from 50% at the end of Q2 2021. Including the incremental 30,000 net memberships that are already contracted to move in, physical occupancy would increase to 60%.
- All Access memberships increased to 32,000 in the third quarter, up from 20,000 in Q2 2021. These All Access memberships represent an additional four percentage points of occupancy.
Company Consolidated Financial Results[1]
- Revenue of $661 million in the third quarter increased from $593 million in the second quarter. Revenue in September was $230 million, making it the fifth consecutive month of revenue growth and the highest monthly revenue recorded in 2021.
- Net loss of $844 million in the quarter, which included $262 million of non-cash and non-recurring expenses, primarily from Depreciation, Amortization and Impairments.
- Adjusted EBITDA loss of $356 million for the quarter, represents a $93 million improvement relative to the second quarter Adjusted EBITDA loss of $449 million.
- Operating Cash Flow was $(380) million for the third quarter. Free Cash Flow was $(430) million, which was an improvement of $219 million relative to the prior quarter.
- On October 20, 2021, WeWork and BowX Acquisition Corp. (“BowX”) announced the closing of their business combination. The combined company was named “WeWork Inc.” and began trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “WE” starting October 21, 2021. The business combination provided WeWork with the previously announced gross cash proceeds of approximately $1.3 billion.
- Pro forma for the closing of the business combination with BowX, WeWork ended the third quarter with cash and unfunded cash commitments of $2.3 billion, which includes $477 million of available cash on hand as of September 30, 2021, $1.2 billion of net proceeds from the business combination, $550 million currently available under the Senior Secured Notes facility, the repayment of the $350 million secured commercial paper facility and $450 million of current availability under the $1.75 billion LC facility.
- The Company regularly evaluates market conditions to enhance its capital structure and diversify its investor base, and from time to time may refinance, redeem, repurchase or otherwise modify existing debt, or issue equity or equity-linked securities.
Space-as-a-Service:
Q3 saw a continuation of the strong momentum seen in the second quarter of 2021. WeWork’s consolidated gross desk sales, which include renewals, of 155,000 equates to 9.3 million square feet sold in the third quarter. New desk sales totaled 84,000 in the same period. In October, WeWork reported preliminary gross desk sales of 45,000, equating to 2.7 million square feet, and preliminary new desk sales of 25,000.
WeWork continued to take an outsized share of overall market leasing activity compared to traditional commercial office leasing activity. While WeWork accounts for about half a percent of the U.S. office inventory, the Company sold the equivalent of over 9% of U.S. office leasing activity in the third quarter. At the market-level, WeWork’s Q3 gross sales in Manhattan were equivalent to 20% of the traditional office market take-up while WeWork’s portfolio of 7 million square feet accounts for approximately 1% of total office stock. WeWork saw similar leasing activity in a number of its largest markets; WeWork’s gross sales equated to 37% of London’s traditional office take-up and 13% of Paris’ take-up while accounting for approximately 1% of stock in the two markets, and 23% of Boston’s take-up in the third quarter, where WeWork represents approximately 2% of the office stock.
WeWork’s consolidated physical memberships increased to 432,000, for a physical occupancy rate of 56% as of the end of September. Including incremental net memberships that are contracted to move in, physical occupancy would increase to 60%. As of October, preliminary physical occupancy had increased three percentage points to 59%. Including net memberships that are contracted to move in, preliminary October physical occupancy was 61%.
Access:
All Access memberships were 32,000 at the end of September, an increase of 60% quarter-over-quarter, or approximately 1,000 memberships per week. By October, preliminary All Access memberships had increased to 38,000. To continue expanding the member acquisition funnel for Access products, WeWork has successfully signed and launched affinity partnerships with American Express, Uber, American Airlines, Brex, and, more recently, Better Mortgage, recruiter.com and Union Square Ventures.
WeWork Workplace:
As companies increasingly embrace more flexible and hybrid work strategies, the WeWork Workplace experiential management offering provides a turnkey solution to manage how and where employees work across assets and markets. Leveraging the software that the company has built over the past 10 years to manage its own spaces, power online booking, and optimize utilization through back-end data analysis, WeWork believes its proprietary technology can be used by third party organizations across their real estate portfolios.
In October, WeWork solidified a strategic business investment with Cushman & Wakefield to market its workplace management software. This announcement built on WeWork’s existing management agreement with Hudson’s Bay Company to manage and operate SaksWorks locations in the Tri-State area, including Brookfield Place and the Saks Fifth Avenue New York flagship in Manhattan, Manhasset, Greenwich, and Eastchester.
Last month, WeWork announced an agreement with Ivanhoé Cambridge to open a flexible space offering in Place Ville Marie, one of Montreal’s iconic and prestigious real estate complexes. Anticipated to open in Spring of 2022, the 11,000 square foot space will leverage WeWork’s management expertise and provide flexible space solutions as an amenity to Ivanhoé’s tenants. The partnership further demonstrates the value of WeWork’s hospitality and management expertise as certain landlords look for opportunities to enrich their offerings to tenants with flexibility and community.
Together, the Cushman & Wakefield, Hudson’s Bay Company and Ivanhoé Cambridge agreements reflect WeWork’s ability to tailor its product suite to suit unique needs of members and landlords alike.
Investors
Chandler Salisbury
Media
Nicole Sizemore
About WeWork
WeWork (NYSE: WE) was founded in 2010 with the vision to create environments where people and companies come together and do their best work. Since opening our first location in New York City, we’ve grown into a global flexible space provider committed to delivering technology-driven flexible solutions, inspiring spaces, and unmatched community experiences. Today, we’re constantly reimagining how the workplace can help everyone, from freelancers to Fortune 500s, be more motivated, productive, and connected. For more information about WeWork, please visit us at https://www.wework.com.
Forward-Looking Statements
Certain statements made in this press release may be deemed “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, as amended. These forward-looking statements generally are identified by the words “believe,” “project,” “expect,” “anticipate,” “estimate,” “intend,” “strategy,” “future,” “opportunity,” “plan,” “pipeline,” “may,” “should,” “will,” “would,” “will be,” “will continue,” “will likely result,” and similar expressions. Forward-looking statements are predictions, projections and other statements about future events that are based on current expectations and assumptions and, as a result, are subject to risks and uncertainties. Although WeWork believes the expectations reflected in any forward-looking statement are based on reasonable assumptions, it can give no assurance that its expectations will be attained, and it is possible that actual results may differ materially from those indicated by these forward-looking statements due to a variety of risks, uncertainties and other factors. Such factors include, but are not limited to, WeWork’s ability to refinance, extend, restructure or repay near and intermediate term debt; its indebtedness; its ability to raise capital through equity issuances, asset sales or the incurrence of new debt; retail and credit market conditions; impairments; its liquidity demand; changes in general economic conditions, including as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic; delays in customers and prospective customers returning to the office and taking occupancy as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and the emergence of the Delta variant leading to a parallel delay in receiving the corresponding revenue; and WeWork’s inability to implement its business plan or meet or exceed its financial projections. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date they are made. WeWork Company discusses these and other risks and uncertainties in its annual and quarterly periodic reports and other documents filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. WeWork may update that discussion in its periodic reports, but otherwise takes no duty or obligation to update or revise these forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future developments, or otherwise.
Use of Non-GAAP Financial Measures
This press release includes certain financial measures not presented in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles in the United States (“GAAP”), including Adjusted EBITDA and Free Cash Flow (including on a forward-looking basis). These financial measures are not measures of financial performance in accordance with GAAP and may exclude items that are significant in understanding and assessing our financial results. Therefore, these measures should not be considered in isolation or as an alternative to net loss or other measures of profitability, liquidity or performance under GAAP. You should be aware that WeWork’s presentation of these measures may not be comparable to similarly titled measures used by other companies, which may be defined and calculated differently. WeWork believes that these non-GAAP measures of financial results (including on a forward-looking basis) provide useful supplemental information to investors about WeWork. WeWork’s management uses forward-looking non-GAAP measures to evaluate WeWork’s projected financials and operating performance. Additionally, to the extent that forward-looking non-GAAP financial measures are provided, they are presented on a non-GAAP basis without reconciliations of such forward-looking non-GAAP measures due to the inherent difficulty in forecasting and quantifying certain amounts that are necessary for such reconciliations.
Non-GAAP Financial Definitions
Adjusted Earnings Before Interest Expense, Income Tax, Depreciation, and Amortization (“Adjusted EBITDA”)
We supplement our GAAP results by evaluating Adjusted EBITDA, a non-GAAP measure. We define “Adjusted EBITDA” as net loss before income tax (benefit) provision, interest and other (income) expense, depreciation and amortization expense, stock-based compensation expense, expense related to stock-based payments for services rendered by consultants, income or expense relating to the changes in fair value of assets and liabilities remeasured to fair value on a recurring basis, expense related to costs associated with mergers, acquisitions, divestitures and capital raising activities, legal, tax and regulatory reserves or settlements, significant legal costs incurred by WeWork in connection with regulatory investigations and litigation regarding WeWork’s 2019 withdrawn initial public offering and the related execution of the SoftBank Transactions, as defined in Note 1 of the Notes to the Condensed Consolidated Financial Statements included in our Quarterly Report for the quarter ended September 30, 2021, net of any insurance or other recoveries, significant non-ordinary course asset impairment charges and, to the extent applicable, any impact of discontinued operations, restructuring charges, and other gains and losses on operating assets.
Free Cash Flow
Because of the limitations of Adjusted EBITDA, as noted above, we also supplement our GAAP results by evaluating Free Cash Flow, a non-GAAP measure. Free Cash Flow is defined as cash flow from
operating activities less cash purchases of property and equipment, each as presented in WeWork’s Condensed Consolidated Statements of Cash Flows calculated in accordance with GAAP. Free Cash Flow is both a performance measure and a liquidity measure that we believe provides useful information to management and investors about the amount of cash generated by or used in the business. Free Cash Flow is also a key metric used internally by our management to develop internal budgets, forecasts and performance targets.
Further information on WeWork Q3 2021 Earnings, including the Key Performance Supplemental Information, can be found by visiting EDGAR on the SEC website at www.sec.gov as well as the Investor Relations page of WeWork’s website at investors.wework.com.
[1] Throughout this release, we make certain references to Non-GAAP financial or operating metrics. Please see “Non-GAAP Financial Definitions” for more detailed discussion and explanations of the various non-GAAP financial measures cited in this release.
