WeWork Europe Expansion Faces Growing Competition Before IPO
- Colliers report shows rise of local flexible office operators
- WeWork has filed IPO paperwork with the U.S. markets regulator
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WeWork Cos. gets a lot of headlines for its breakneck expansion into new markets, and that’s only likely to increase now that it plans to go public. Yet the nine-year-old company faces stiff competition in Europe from established work-space providers like IWG Plc and local startups.
The number of serviced and co-working offices across Europe has ballooned by more than 200 percent in the last five years, according to a report by real estate broker Colliers International Group Inc. WeWork has helped to drive this growth: it has nearly 50 locations in London and has added sites from Manchester to Moscow.