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WeWork Special Committee sues SoftBank over terminated $3B share acquisition
A Special Committee of We Co., the parent company of troubled workplace provider WeWork, today filed a lawsuit against SoftBank Group Corp. after SoftBank terminated its offer to buy $3 billion in WeWork shares April 2.
The lawsuit alleges that SoftBank breached its obligations under the agreement to acquire WeWork shares in October. WeWork specifically claims that SoftBank breached its fiduciary duty to WeWork’s minority shareholders by failing to follow through with the offer.
“SoftBank’s failure to consummate the tender offer is a clear breach of its contractual obligations under the [Master Transaction Agreement] as well as a breach of SoftBank’s fiduciary obligations to WeWork’s minority stockholders, including hundreds of current and former employees,” the We Co. Special Committee said in a statement.
SoftBank, which is notably WeWork’s biggest investor and possibly the only reason why the company still exists in 2020 — and that was before COVID-19 — naturally was not pleased with the lawsuit.
“Nothing in the Special Committee’s filing today credibly refutes SoftBank’s decision to terminate the tender offer,” SoftBank said in a statement. “Several of the conditions the Special Committee, WeWork, Adam Neumann, SoftBank and SoftBank Vision Fund agreed to last October as requirements for completing the tender were not met as of April 1, 2020.”
A spokesperson for SoftBank also told CNBC that the lawsuit was a “desperate and misguided attempt” to “rewrite” its agreement and said SoftBank has remained committed to WeWork beyond the offer, investing more than $5 billion since October.
While people die in the thousands daily from the COVID-19 pandemic, WeWork is suing its main investor. And when WeWork talks about “minority stockholders” they’re mostly referring to Adam Neumann.
Neumann, allegedly, has a major issue with drugs along with delusions of grandeur such as wanting to become the “President of the World.” WeWork’s co-founder and Neumann’s wife Rebekah Neumann was alleged to have once fired staff because she disliked their “energy,” and liked to “infuse spiritualism” into the company.
The only infusion of anything into WeWork that will keep the company operating is SoftBank’s money. That the very same company would sue its major benefactor may soon become a textbook case of tech unicorn madness in the second and now third decade of the 21st century.
Photo: Pixabay
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