The information is filled with tales concerning yesterday’s name by WeWork to its landlords serving discover that they had been looking for to renegotiate practically all their leases. This was accompanied by a letter from WeWork CEO David Tolley who acknowledged inter alia that “[a]s a part of these negotiations, we count on to exit unfit and underperforming places” so as “to realize the sustainable working mannequin that we want“. Mr. olley concluded his letter by saying that “WeWork is right here to remain. We’ll stay a worldwide flex house chief, and trusted actual property companion to our members.”
This uncommon gambit was clearly meant to set the tone for negotiations and supply WeWork with the higher hand within the discussions between their actual property advisor Hilco World and the corporate’s landlords. As is my wont on these issues, I consulted the overall counsel of Wharton Property Advisors Eric Haber who can also be a chapter legal professional, for his tackle the scenario.
Eric’s view is that after once more WeWork is attempting to have its cake and eat it too. Stated much less colloquially, WeWork is attempting to acquire the advantages of chapter outdoors of court docket with out submitting an precise case with the attendant threat of getting its shareholders worn out or considerably diluted.
In most conditions, any such aggressive technique in negotiating with collectors would in all probability not work for a debtor previous to a attainable Chapter 11 submitting as a result of it usually has little negotiating leverage with distributors and lenders. Nonetheless, on this occasion due to the weak spot of the workplace market world wide some landlords could also be receptive to the chance to barter with WeWork as a result of they merely wouldn’t have any alternative tenants lined up, nor do they anticipate having them. Consequently, WeWork has appreciable bargaining energy, because it publicly introduced with its name and the Tolley letter.
That stated, one concern that’s unclear is how WeWork plans to exit places which might be underperforming the place the owner refuses to barter outdoors of a chapter and not using a substantial buyout for longer leases. However WeWork’s actual leverage arises out of what may occur to landlords in a chapter continuing. That’s as a result of the Chapter Code permits a debtor to reject leases and caps the unsecured rejection harm declare of the owner on the better of (a) one yr’s lease or (b) 15% of the remaining lease due on the lease, to not exceed three years. In lots of situations, which means the owner will obtain pennies on the greenback at greatest.
Additional, WeWork has used this playbook a number of instances earlier than. In actual fact, based on the Actual Deal WeWork has already renegotiated or terminated 590 leases, saving $12.7 billion in leasing prices since 2019. Nonetheless, that clearly didn’t do the job as the corporate continues to hemorrhage money.
Nonetheless, WeWork is again for an additional chunk on the (Huge) Apple, the place it accounts for roughly 6.4 million sq. toes of a 414 million sq. foot sq. foot market. As WeWork has significantly diminished its workplace footprint already, the scenario may have been worse, but it surely simply provides to the ache that the sector is struggling. Will WeWork’s plan work? That is still to be seen.
The underside line with any firm looking for to reorganize in or out of court docket is that it must have a profitable underlying enterprise. In line with Mr. Tolley’s letter, lease prices characterize over 2/3 of WeWork’s working bills so if they’ll obtain significant concessions, perhaps they’ve a combating likelihood. Nonetheless, we’ve got seen this film earlier than so time will inform. We’re simply in the beginning of the most recent chapter of the fascinating WeWork story.
