The We Co., parent of WeWork, today announced plans to withdraw its S-1 filing, delaying its initial public offering indefinitely.

The co-working space provider had originally intended to hit the stock market as early as this month but was forced to change course after lackluster interest from Wall Street. Later, WeWork said that the listing would take place by the end of the year.

The collapse of the company’s IPO ambitions culminated with the high-profile departure of founder and Chief Executive Officer Adam Neumann last week. Neumann left the top post in the wake of what insiders described as an ouster backed by SoftBank Group Corp., WeWork’s biggest investor. The board tapped Chief Financial Officer Artie Minson and Vice Chairman Sebastian Gunningham to take over as co-CEOs. 

“We have decided to postpone our IPO to focus on our core business, the fundamentals of which remain strong,” Minson and Gunningham said in a statement. “We have every intention to operate WeWork as a public company and look forward to revisiting the public equity markets in the future.”

The executives are expected to make major changes before putting the company back on track for an IPO. Recent reports suggest that Minson and Gunningham plan to push out about 20 employees close to Adam Neumann, including some senior staff, as well as potentially pursue broader layoffs. Sources told The Information that as many as 5,000 WeWork workers could lose their jobs.

Other cost-cutting measures are said to be on the table too. The new leadership is reportedly considering to sell off some of WeWork’s secondary units such as its office maintenance business.

The steps being considered all have the goal of curbing WeWork’s massive losses, the main reason for Wall Street’s negative reaction to its IPO bid. Minson and Gunningham have their work cut out for them: WeWork never turned a profit and lost a massive $904 million in the first half of 2019. 

Time may not be on their side, either. Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. analyst Chris Lane warned in a report cited by Fortune that WeWork could run out of capital as early as the first quarter of 2020 at the current rate. However, other analysts told the publication that they believe WeWork will likely be capable of raising new capital to support operations. 

Photo: Pixabay