Dr. Gleb Tsipursky – The Office Whisperer
Cat Johnson – Coworking Marketing Maven
Angela Howard – Culture Expert
Drew Jones – Design & Innovation
Andrea Pirrotti-Dranchak – Competitive Advantage
Jonathan Price – CRE & Flex Expert
Jeremy Fennema – Tech Innovation Alchemist
Joseph Pangburn, Piedmont Office Realty Trust’s Executive Vice President, has announced that the company is done with WeWork, at least for the moment.
Pangburn, who has leased three properties to WeWork in Atlanta, Washington D.C. and Orlando, is second-guessing the value of WeWork in light of concerns revealed in the company’s recent pre-IPO filing.
The prospectus revealed that WeWork has lost almost $700 million in the first half of 2019, and is expected to lose more in the future.
While some analysts believe only WeWork is in trouble, others are concerned about the entire coworking industry.
“When the debt market starts to tell you they are worried and skittish on [coworking], there is probably a bubble,” said Patrick Hicks, Hicks Ventures principal.
Still, many industry experts believe that the outcome of WeWork’s IPO will not hurt the industry as a whole. Going forward, coworking companies should take note of what has gone wrong in WeWork’s financial and business models and reassess their own practices.
For example, The Cannon founder and CEO Lawson Gow said that he believes management agreements with landlords are the future of coworking.
