, Columnist
WeWork Is a $9 Billion Test of SPAC Appetite
Bond investors have grown more confident about WeWork’s prospects but once-bitten equity investors will take more convincing
Spaced out.
Photo: Bloomberg
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If at first you don’t succeed with an IPO, try again with a special purpose acquisition company. Having failed abysmally when trying to go public the traditional way in 2019, office-space provider WeWork Cos. is reportedly in talks to merge with BowX Acquisition Corp. and thereby join the stock market.
A SPAC transaction has obvious appeal, as my colleague Matt Levine notes. Merging with a $480 million cash shell and raising a separate pot of institutional money, known as a PIPE, would make WeWork less dependent on majority owner Softbank Group Corp. for funding.