Real estate firm WeWork may soon no longer be an independent company: Lead investor SoftBank Group Corp. reportedly is in talks to take over control of parent company The We Company in an effort to arrest its ongoing losses.

CNBC reported today that SoftBank is in very advanced talks to take over WeWork on a valuation of $7.5 billion to $8 billion. As part of the deal, SoftBank would spend between $4 billion and $5 billion on new funding and acquiring existing shares.

WeWork was valued at $47 billion as of its last venture capital round of $4.4 billion in 2017, a round that SoftBank led. Coming into its now-canceled initial public offering, the company was reported to have a $47 billion valuation before dropping the valuation to a reported figure of $10 billion to $20 billion.

Everything that could possibly go wrong for the WeWork, a company founded in 2010, did between its U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission IPO filing and its eventual cancellation of its plans.

The alleged rot at the company started at its very top with co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Adam Neumann. Investors were already skeptical about WeWork’s IPO plans given its massive losses, but that was nothing compared with the exposure of Neumann himself in September.

The Wall Street Journal in a damning expose reported Sept. 18 that Neumann had a drug problem and behaved erratically. Among the more bizarre claims is that Neumann desired to be president of the world, live forever and become the world’s first trillionaire. Rebekah Neumann, WeWork’s co-founder and Neumann’s wife, was alleged to have once fired staff because she disliked their “energy” and “pushes to infuse spiritualism” into the company.

Neumann lasted until Sept. 24, when he was forced out the company in response to the Journal report. Acting co-CEOs Artie Minson and Sebastian Gunningham announced a restructuring of the company. But given the amount invested and the dumpster-fire story to date, that apparently is not enough for SoftBank.

As Wired recently noted, WeWork’s failure was SoftBank’s day of reckoning. The Japanese telco giant has its investment paws in hundreds of companies and has mostly been a shrewd investor, but its investment in WeWork is seen as a huge mistake. SoftBank, in taking control of the company, may possibly be able to turn around its fortunes, but it’s not doing so as an act of benevolence but as a desperate attempt to save the money it has invested in WeWork.

Photo: Duncan Riley