WeWork May Pay Up in Its $500 Million Junk-Bond Market Debut
WeWork Is Said to Sell $500 Million of Junk Bonds in Debut Sale
(Bloomberg) -- WeWork Cos. may pay up to help finance its aggressive global expansion.
The company is dangling preliminary yields of 7.75 percent to 8 percent to sell $500 million of bonds to investors in its inaugural deal, according to a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be named because the deal is private. Notes with comparable ratings and maturities typically yield about 5 percent, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
The co-working space company backed by SoftBank Group Corp. joins a wave of high-flying, but cash-burning, tech firms tapping debt markets just as interest rates start to creep higher. Uber Technologies Inc. in March sought a loan even while burning through cash and posting an annual loss. Netflix Inc. borrowed $1.9 billion on Monday after allaying cash-flow concerns with continued subscriber growth.
Representatives at WeWork declined to comment beyond the company’s bond documents.
WeWork, founded in 2010 by a pair of American and Israeli entrepreneurs, is plotting a global expansion with a $4.4 billion investment from SoftBank that just this month saw it buy a Chinese startup and an office complex in London. While the New York firm’s financial metrics may be thinner than debt investors usually insist on, the success of borrowing efforts by Uber, Netflix and Tesla Inc.-- sharing the same flashy, trendy brands and devoted followers -- suggests the proposal may fly in a market wide-open and hungry for debt.
"As a company in a sustained growth mode, WeWork is not profitable on a combined basis, as significant growth operating expenses more than offset existing property cash flows," Fitch Ratings said in a report Tuesday.
Junk Ratings
The offering may be sold as soon as Wednesday afternoon, the person said. Fitch gave the seven-year bonds a rating of BB-, three steps into junk. S&P Global Ratings rated the notes one step lower at B+.
WeWork began business by leasing office space and renting desks to New York’s creative set, with unusual work perks such as microbrews on tap and a “community manager” who programs events such as book clubs and Ping-Pong tournaments. It now has 234 locations across 22 countries, company documents show, with a portfolio of short-term co-working spaces, mainly leased from landlords on long-term rental agreements.
Lease flexibility, a major perk for potential WeWork tenants, also poses one of the company’s biggest risks. The company is subject to "mismatched terms" when it takes 10- or 20-year office leases from landlords and then offers companies month-to-month rental options, according to Fitch.
For now, WeWork can manage the risk because its spaces are in high demand and it doesn’t need full occupancy to break even. But the eight-year-old company has yet to operate through a broad commercial real estate downturn.
"We are generally uncomfortable when an equity story drives a debt issuance, especially when cost of capital is cheap,” said Niklas Nordenfelt, a high-yield senior portfolio manager at Wells Fargo Asset Management.
Valuation Rises
SoftBank’s investment, made with its Vision Fund in August, helped increase the company’s valuation to about $20 billion at the time and allowed some shareholders to cash out. The company has grown from 44,000 desks as of December 1, 2015, to 251,000 as of March 1, the bond documents show. Still, despite more than doubling desks last year, its occupancy rate increased to more than 80 percent on Dec. 1, 2017, from 76 percent a year earlier, according to the documents.
The company’s most “significant general and administrative expense” is compensation and related benefits, the documents showed. Stock-based compensation rose to $260.7 million for the year ended December 31, 2017 from $17.4 million for the year earlier.
WeWork’s debt proposal was marketed to investors last week in New York, Boston, Los Angeles and San Francisco, a person with knowledge of the matter said, asking not to be identified discussing a private matter.
In the bond documents, WeWork said it "received funding from a diverse and committed investor base that provides not only financial support but also strong institutional knowledge.”
‘Generally Uncomfortable’
WeWork’s debt market journey is a familiar one. Like Tesla, Uber and Netflix, it went from startup to the stratosphere, disrupting age-old markets and cultivating devoted followers to its brand en route.
WeWork could significantly increase the size of the bond sale based on investor demand, the Financial Times reported Monday, citing five people with knowledge of the planned sale. Uber, Netflix and Telsa, too, were able to increase their borrowings.
“The deal will get done, as people like the story given WeWork’s brand recognition and initial success as an industry disruptor,” said Robert Arnold, a New York-based portfolio manager at TwentyFour Asset Management. “But from a bond perspective, the company is issuing debt to fund growth, so you have to buy into in the multi-year, cash-flow story at this point in the cycle.”
JPMorgan Chase & Co., Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc., Deutsche Bank AG, Goldman Sachs Group Inc., HSBC Holdings Plc, Morgan Stanley, UBS Group AG and Wells Fargo & Co. are managing the sale, the person said.
--With assistance from Gowri Gurumurthy Claire Boston and Tom Giles
To contact the reporters on this story: Molly Smith in New York at msmith604@bloomberg.net, Sally Bakewell in New York at sbakewell1@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Nikolaj Gammeltoft at ngammeltoft@bloomberg.net, Kenneth Pringle, Dan Wilchins
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