In the third quarter, WeWork racked up $1.25 billion in total losses as the company braced itself for its debut as a publicly-listed entity and ultimately scuttled it - and suffered big time.
Between June-September, WeWork's losses more than doubled compared to the same period of the previous year as the company's office-sharing venture spent heavily on aggressive growth.
The results outperformed a 94 percent eye-popping jump in sales, hitting $934 million in the same period compared to the previous year. The statistics have been included in a bond owners' document received by The Associated Press on Thursday.
In the third quarter, WeWork added 103 office-sharing locations. It now has 625 locations around the world in 127 cities. WeWork makes money by renting and splitting buildings into smaller spaces, which are then rented on a customizable, short-term basis to employees.
Membership rose to 609,000. Approximately 43 percent of respondents are businesses with 500 or more workers who chose to rent longer.
WeWork plans to focus on building the clientele because it offers recurring revenue that is more secure than the smaller companies, entrepreneurs, and freelancers that already make up the majority of its customers.
Expenditure on money rentals jumped in the period to $448 million, from $218 million a year ago. When market cynicism about the value of the company increased, WeWork scrapped its initial public offering.
This left it searching for money immediately because it was relying on the initial public bid to collect $9 billion in equity and associated debt financing.
Softbank, already the biggest shareholder in WeWork, jumped in with $9.5 billion in equity and debt investment which turned over almost 80 percent of the company's Japanese software empire holdings.
WeWork is now embarking on a major restructuring including job cuts. It also sells off most of the side businesses that it acquired in an expenditure spree, including the Meetup online community event organizer.
The changes are part of a plan to focus on the core business of WeWork's flexible office leasing and away from the scattered vision pursued by ousted chief executive officer Adam Neumann, which included opening a primary school and investing in a wave pool business.
In January, facing the prospect of becoming public at a fraction of the $47 billion private value it received and dropping shy of capital criteria, WeWork canceled the IPO and Neumann stepped down.
Short of cash, a $9.5 billion rescue deal with SoftBank was reached that gave the company's investor control.
