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Guardant Health May Be Unlikely Victim of WeWork Valuation Woes

Guardant Health May Be Unlikely Victim of WeWork Valuation Woes

(Bloomberg) -- WeWork’s contentious initial public offering may be hitting another key SoftBank investment: Guardant Health Inc.

Guardant’s stock dropped as much as 7.8% Wednesday amid reports that SoftBank is seeking to postpone WeWork’s IPO on concerns over falling valuations. With Guardant returning more than three times its 2018 offering price of $19, it may be the best bet for SoftBank’s Vision Fund to raise cash.

Guardant Health May Be Unlikely Victim of WeWork Valuation Woes

WeWork needs to raise at least $3 billion through an IPO to tap into an additional $6 billion credit line that bankers have been setting up in recent weeks. According to a Financial Times report in May, the Softbank Vision Fund was looking to use stakes in Guardant, Uber Technologies Inc. and Slack Technologies Inc. as collateral for a $4 billion loan.

The fund is Guardant’s largest holder with a nearly 30% stake, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The companies are in a joint venture to speed up commercialization of Guardant’s cancer tests across Asia, the Middle East and Africa. Guardant and SoftBank did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

To contact the reporters on this story: Cristin Flanagan in New York at cflanagan1@bloomberg.net;Joshua Fineman in New York at jfineman@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Catherine Larkin at clarkin4@bloomberg.net, Steven Fromm, Mark Milian

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