The We Co. had itself a week (… and I mean that in the worst way possible) culminating in its selection of Nasdaq to list the company.
The office-space rental and real estate company was expected to be an IPO darling this year, but similar to the likes of Uber, Lyft, Slack, and most recently, Smile Direct Club, sh*t has hit the fan.
How bad is it? We’s valuation is expected to drop from $47B closer to the $15B to $20B range.Along with its Nasdaq listing, it officially announced through an S-1 filing with the SEC that it would calm investors’ concerns by limiting CEO Adam Neumann’s control over the future of the company. Given his history of being more sketchy than Travis Kalanick, this is probably not a bad idea.
Let’s break this down, shall we?
First and foremost, We committed to hiring an independent governance director and adding another director within a year. The preferred workspace of the next Elizabeth Holmes will also allow its board to choose Neumann’s successor, not its succession team … which included Neumann’s wife. SMH.
The new documentation also reduces the CEOs voting rights from 20 votes per share to 10, and drops to 1 vote if he becomes incapacitated or dies. Because of course Adam Neumann will be able to make our lives miserable from beyond the grave …
Can’t teach an old dog new tricks
Apparently Masa Son is the guy who goes for it in Madden on 4th and 36.
You may remember that Japan’s SoftBank has already thrown Scrooge McDuck amount’s of cash at We. And despite the litany of bad news, Masa is ride or die. SoftBank announced it would purchase up to $750M worth of shares via the public offering in hopes of buoying investor sentiment.
The bottom line …
We Company is forging ahead with its IPO despite tepid interest from investors. The company hopes that the restrictions on the CEO’s power and other governance measures will get investors back on board. Unfortunately, none of these changes address the company being unprofitable …
Drone strikes shut down half of Saudi Arabia’s oil production on Saturday. Houthi rebels based in Yemen, who are known to be backed by Iran, took credit for the attacks.
But US and Saudi officials aren’t quite so sure. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo blamed Iran for the attacks, while US and Saudi officials are looking into the possibility of cruise missiles that originated in Iraq or Iran.
Repeat offenders
It wouldn’t be the first time Saudi oil fields have been the target of Houthi drone strikes. As recently as August, one of Saudi Arabia’s largest oil fields, Shabaya, was the target of 10 drones.
While that attack didn’t disrupt petroleum production, this one did. Saudi Arabia confirmed that it had shut down production operations amounting to a loss of more than 5.7B barrels per day, or around 5% of the world’s crude oil production.
That’s not good
Astute observation, Sherlock. However, the Saudi government says that black gold production will be back up and running at full capacity as soon as today. If for some reason that doesn’t happen, have no fear, the western world has oil reserves that it’s sitting on for moments just like these.
The bottom line …
Well, a shutdown of this scale hasn’t happened since 1990, when Iraq invaded Kuwait, so if the Saudis can’t get their sh*t together today, oil prices could rise anywhere from $5 to $10 per barrel. Increased fuel prices could also mean rising gas and heating bills as we head into the fall.
And income taken out of the honest workin’ man’s pockets could hurt the US economy, which has been bolstered by consumer spending …
