WeWork Co-Founder Adam Neumann Pivots To Residential Real Estate

The former WeWork chief executive officer has accumulated a real estate portfolio in excess of $1 billion since departing the shared workspace giant in 2019 following a calamitous IPO bid.

WeWork founder and former chief executive Adam Neumann, who has shown an interest in residential real estate since departing the co-working firm, has begun amassing a portfolio of apartment buildings, according to a new report.

The full details of the tech mogul’s plans aren’t yet fully clear. Neumann has acquired a majority stake in buildings with more than 4,000 apartments, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.

The holdings across Miami, Atlanta, Nashville, Tennessee, and others are valued at over $1 billion, the paper reported, citing available records and conversations with unnamed sources it said were familiar with the transactions.

Neumann is well known for founding the shared workspace company WeWork, steering it through nearly a decade of rapid growth before a rocky departure and stalled IPO in 2019.

He remains a major shareholder and has told friends he plans to make waves with his new apartment holdings, The Wall Street Journal reported. How he plans to do that remains unclear, but it may indicate a continuation of other recent moves in real estate.

In 2020, Neumann led a $42 million Series C funding round for Alfred, a residential management software startup. Neumann’s investment totaled $30 million, according to a Bloomberg report at the time.

Alfred bills itself as an end-to-end residential management platform that delivers in-home support and local services to residents.

For Neumann, the investment marked a return to residential real estate. Tuesday’s news shows he plans to grow that footprint.

Founded by Neumann in 2010, WeWork grew rapidly over the years thanks to investments from Japanese megafund Softbank, among others. The company’s business model involves leasing large spaces in office buildings, then subdividing and subleasing those spaces out to smaller companies.

WeWork made its public debut on Oct. 20, 2021, under the ticker “WE.” It was valued at about $9 billion last quarter, a fraction of its one-time valuation of $47 billion.

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