Fallen from grace, WeWork is starting to pick itself back up again one step at a time.
Cushman & Wakefield, one of the world’s largest commercial real estate services firms, are in talks to form a
$150M partnership with WeWork with an SPAC deal finally taking them public after years of turmoil.
A turn of events, as at one stage former WeWork CEO Adam Neumann considered acquiring Cushman & Wakefield.
As we see vaccine rollouts continuing to proceed, and offices returning to work - landlords, investors and governments are desperate to bring back workers yet occupancy rates have been slow to recover.
Many companies have either ditched their offices in favour of remote working or are adopting a hybrid approach meaning they won’t need that big office space they leased for 3 years anymore.
The rise in demand for coworking spaces has been fueled by the backend of COVID-19, as employees simply don’t want or need to be in the office 5 days a week anymore.
Through the partnership, Cushman & Wakefield will market WeWork’s management experience platform to both landlords and businesses to help build demand for flexible workspaces.
Perhaps this is the emergence of a new industry; co-working/hybrid offices as a service?