SoftBank Group Corp announced that it has abandoned a $3 billion bid for extra WeWork shares negotiated with stakeholders in 2019, including ousted co-founder Adam Neumann, which attracted threats from other board members to file charges.

In a statement, SoftBank said it is withdrawing from the deal as part of the struggling space-sharing operator's rescue program. WeWork rents large quantities of space in office buildings, and then assigns it to freelancers, small companies, and big businesses.

But lease payments and the cost of upgrading the sites have absorbed billions of dollars. The financial pressures for WeWork were expected to grow this year as the company continued its breakneck growth, opening spaces that it had already agreed to lease.

The chief executive of SoftBank, Masayoshi Son, was a staunch supporter of Neumann's heady vision for WeWork, which focused on building collaborative work environments where workers can work more efficiently and feel more empowered.

But Neumann quit the company last year after investors balked at his style of management and the company's personal transactions that raised possible conflicts of interest.

The statement cites key matters including a failure to recapitalize the collapsing joint venture of WeWork in China, criminal and civil probe into the company and the effect of the pandemic on its overall operations.

The tender offer deadline was April 1. Still, Softbank remains committed to providing WeWork with up to $5 billion in funding to help raise its working capital, sources said.

Neumann was prepared to tender a slug of his stock to Softbank at $1 billion. That attracted the wrath of employees of WeWork and other investors, many of whom keep worthless stock options because of Neumann's failed leadership.

According to a statement, WeWork's Board of Directors' Special Committee has been told by the startup's controlling shareholder SoftBank that "it will not complete the tender offer it agreed in October 2019," stressing that the bank was "disappointed" by recent developments.

The special committee is composed of Bruce Dunlevie, a founding partner of venture capital company Benchmark Capital, and Lew Frankfort, Coach's former chief executive. All were listed in the corporation's public offering documents as major WeWork stakereholders.

Reuters stated last month that SoftBank was considering buying additional shares in WeWork out of the US$3 billion offer, as it felt the U.S. firm had not fulfilled the terms of the contract. The board of WeWork's special committee later said it was planning for a dispute against the Japanese business.