WeWork Raising Billions In Debt Ahead Of Its IPO: Can Coworking Company Outperform Uber, Lyft?

Coworking space management company WeWork is seeking to raise up to $4 billion in debt ahead of its stock market launch.

WeWork, which designs coworking spaces for companies, believes that raising billions in debt before its IPO would "shore up confidence in its business" before going public.

The company in December filed confidentially for an IPO with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

WeWork has so far had a troubling financial history, losing $1.9 billion just in 2018 alone and has faced sustainability questions.

Ridesharing apps Uber (UBER) and Lyft (LYFT), two other Silicon Valley companies, have had disappointing IPOs so far this year. Uber went public on May 10 and was originally valued $45 a share. It started the day at $42 but wound up at market close at $41.57 a share, a decrease of 7.6% from its IPO price.

Lyft went public on March 29, with an IPO price of $72. The stock ended the day at $78 a share, a weaker increase than expected. On its second day of trading, shares of Lyft dropped to $69 before dropping to $60 on April 10.

Billionaire investor Mark Cuban has said that both Uber and Lyft waited too long before going public. He said that Uber's poor performance especially suggests that Silicon Valley venture capital investors "are not very good at valuing companies."

"The big lessons from the Uber and Lyft IPOs for these large, unprofitable but transformational companies in many ways is that WeWork needs to provide a more detailed and granular roadmap about how it plans to achieve profitability over time," said Tom White, a senior vice president and senior research analyst at financial services company D.A. Davidson.

WeWork was founded in 2010 by Adam Neumann and Miguel McKelvey in New York. The company operates approximately 750 coworking spaces around the world.