Former WeWork CEO Adam Neumann and Japanese conglomerate SoftBank are inching closer to settling their prolonged legal dispute.
The legal battle began after SoftBank offered to pay $3 billion for WeWork stock as part of its multibillion-dollar bailout. However, SoftBank withdrew the offer after the pandemic emptied WeWork’s workspace facilities all over the world. That’s when Neumann sued for breach of contract.
SoftBank aimed to combine WeWork with another publicly traded special-purpose acquisition company, which would allow the coworking firm to become public itself. However, the lawsuit has left this plan in limbo because it is still uncertain how much control the Japanese conglomerate has over WeWork.
At the moment, the terms being discussed would involve SoftBank buying half the number of shares it originally planned to for $1.5 billion. Neumann would also get up to $500 million instead of the nearly $1 billion and keep more of his shares.
