WeWork flies dangerously close to the sun

Office rental firm WeWork’s valuation is plummeting ahead of a planned IPO as investors fight shy of yet another young company pushing its limits, writes Michelle Davis

Adam Neumann, co-founder of WeWork. Pic: Getty

First WeWork hit London. Then Boston. Then Toronto. Over the past week, WeWork executives have raced from city to city in an attempt to win over increasingly sceptical investors.

By the time the company’s Gulfstream G-6 touched down outside New York late last Tuesday, the grandiose ambitions of Adam Neumann, the company’s brash co-founder and pitchman, remained on a knife-edge. His own fortune, while still enviable, was rapidly slipping away.

With WeWork’s valuation ...