糖心视频

The more we learn about the debacle, the more head-scratching it gets.

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According to a from The Telegraph, WeWork co-founder and ousted CEO unloaded $361 million worth of shares when Japanese investment conglomerate first invested in the company in 2017.

And he wasn鈥檛 the only one.

The Telegraph reports that , which was WeWorks鈥� first major investor, also cashed out at the time. It apparently 鈥渟old $315.5m in shares during the 2017 deal and a later SoftBank investment in 2019,鈥� the news article reveals. Specifically, according to Crunchbase, Benchmark led WeWork鈥檚 (ironically some may say) on April 1, 2012.

This means that WeWork鈥檚 largest shareholders鈥� (previously undisclosed) sell-offs made up nearly one-third of the $2.3 billion worth of shares SoftBank bought from insiders right before the company was set to go public in 2019.

From bad to worse

The practice of early investors getting rid of their shares before an IPO is not an illegal one but, as The Telegraph and acknowledge, it鈥檚 not exactly typical. I mean, don鈥檛 most people hope a company goes public at a higher valuation so that they will make even more money?

As The Wall Street Journal reporter Eliot Brown , a few other high-profile companies (Zynga, Groupon and Blue Apron) also saw their founders/CEOs sell a larger number of shares. In each of those cases, he said, the companies鈥� IPO prices were lower.

For those of you who haven鈥檛 been following the WeWork saga, the company decided to cancel its IPO last September. At that point, SoftBank agreed to a $9.5 billion bailout of the company in a deal that included buying $3 billion worth of shares from existing investors at a $10 billion valuation. This was significantly less than the $47 billion valuation at which SoftBank purchased shares in 2019, noted The Telegraph.

Earlier this month, our own Sophia Kunthara reported that had withdrawn its $3 billion tender offer for shares, citing conditions of the offer not being satisfied.

Also today, SoftBank Group of $7 billion for the fiscal year ended March due to the negative impact of coronavirus and losses related to WeWork, AFP .

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