SoftBank officials are among those who are expected to push for Neumann's removal

By Maureen Farrell, Liz Hoffman, Eliot Brown and David Benoit 

This article is being republished as part of our daily reproduction of WSJ.com articles that also appeared in the U.S. print edition of The Wall Street Journal (September 23, 2019).

A bloc of WeWork directors is planning to push Adam Neumann to step down as chief executive after a tumultuous week in which his eccentric behavior and drug use came to light, and the startup delayed its much-anticipated stock-market listing.

A group including officials tied to SoftBank Group Corp., the company's largest investor, wants Mr. Neumann to relinquish his title of CEO of We Co., the parent of the office-sharing company, people familiar with the matter said.

The board is expected to meet as soon as this week and potentially consider a proposal for Mr. Neumann to become We's nonexecutive chairman, some of the people said. That would allow him to stay at the company he built into one of the country's most valuable startups, but inject fresh leadership to pursue an IPO that would bring We the cash it needs to keep up its torrid growth.

The company burned through more than $2 billion in 2018 and analysts have projected that on its current path We will run through what it has on hand sometime next year.

Any attempted coup is a gamble: Mr. Neumann still has allies among the directors and the ability to fire the entire board thanks to shares he controls that carry extra votes. But SoftBank, which has invested more than $9 billion into the company and is represented on the board, has considerable influence too, and We needs the Japanese conglomerate to continue pumping in cash.

It couldn't be learned how all of the We directors -- there are seven including Mr. Neumann -- are aligned, and the situation is fluid.

SoftBank's patience has been tested. Earlier this year, it bought shares of We at a $47 billion valuation, a level that now looks wildly overblown. As We prepared to list its shares earlier this month, the company's expected valuation had fallen to roughly a third of that.

Even at that discount, We was forced to shelve the offering as criticism mounted of the company's governance and its financial losses -- $1.6 billion last year, and growing -- despite its rapid revenue growth.

The Wall Street Journal reported last week that Mr. Neumann had taken marijuana on a flight from New York to Israel, prompting the jet's owner to recall the plane. The revelation added to concerns over Mr. Neumann's management style and transactions with the company that made him rich.

We already had made governance changes meant to win over reluctant investors. On Sept. 13 it decreased the potency of Mr. Neumann's supervoting shares -- still leaving him firmly in control -- as well as reducing his wife's role in corporate matters and reversing his controversial sale to the company of a trademark of "We."

Some of SoftBank's executives have long been wary of We's soaring valuation and Mr. Neumann's unusual behavior, even as they continued to give him money. SoftBank was expected to buy as much as $1 billion in stock in We's initial public offering, a large portion of the roughly $3 billion it sought to raise from investors, people familiar with the matter said. That commitment wasn't enough to keep the listing on track, though We has pledged to get it done this year.

SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son has long been a vocal advocate of We and Mr. Neumann, who, like him, is viewed by many as a visionary. Mr. Son told CNBC in March he still wanted to invest more in the company despite the misgivings of some of his own investors. SoftBank has invested in We directly and through the Vision Fund, a $100 billion pool it raised in 2017.

The Vision Fund's $4.4 billion investment in 2017 valued We at about $20 billion. When the fund's biggest investors, a pair of Middle Eastern governments, balked last year at investing more, SoftBank itself stepped in, committing $4 billion at a $47 billion valuation.

Mr. Neumann wouldn't be the first startup founder forced out by controversy. Uber Technologies Inc.'s Travis Kalanick was pushed out by his board in 2017 after the ride-hailing company was widely criticized for a chauvinistic and toxic work culture. Uber went public this spring with a new chief executive brought in from the outside.

Write to Maureen Farrell at maureen.farrell@wsj.com, Liz Hoffman at liz.hoffman@wsj.com, Eliot Brown at eliot.brown@wsj.com and David Benoit at david.benoit@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

September 23, 2019 02:47 ET (06:47 GMT)

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