WeWork Continues To Cut London Portfolio As International Arm Makes Loss

Beleaguered coworking giant WeWork has reached agreements to cut three more of its London locations totalling more than 250K SF as its international division reported a £110M loss.

The latest locations on the chopping block are Shoreditch Exchange, The Hewett and The Bower, all in the Shoreditch area of east London. WeWork now operates 36 locations in London spanning 2.8M SF, down from more than 50 sites totalling more than 3.5M SF at the company’s peak. 

WeWork has either closed or is in talks to close 13 London locations totalling almost 500K SF since the beginning of September last year, according to an analysis by Bisnow. 

Landlord Regal London has teamed up with coworking specialist Platform to take over the operation of 143K SF at Shoreditch Exchange. WeWork reached an agreement with landlord Helical to exit its lease for 59K SF at The Bower late last year. It has also struck a deal to exit a lease on the 70K SF Hewett building at The Stage, a mixed-use scheme with 180K SF of offices. Amazon is in talks to take the latter space. 

WeWork entered bankruptcy in the U.S. in November. It has been in talks with landlords around the world to cut its rent payments and exit leases to reduce its outgoings. 

“As part of WeWork’s efforts to achieve a sustainable capital structure and profitable business to serve our members and landlord partners for the long term, WeWork has reached mutually beneficial agreements with landlord partners at The Hewett, Shoreditch Exchange and The Bower, respectively,” a spokeswoman for WeWork told Bisnow in a statement.

“While WeWork no longer operates these locations, we look forward to continuing to provide flexible space solutions across our other locations in London, which remains a key market for us and where we are incredibly well served with well-connected and expertly designed space.”

Bisnow reported on Tuesday that WeWork has sought to exit a fresh batch of leases in the U.S. and Canada through the bankruptcy process, bringing its tally of exited leases in the region to 81 out of a total of 292.

WeWork had 509 global locations as of Oct. 12 and signalled in a bankruptcy filing that it could walk away from as many as 163 of them. Its UK and Irish business is not part of the bankruptcy process. 

WeWork International made a £110M loss in 2022, according to accounts filed in the UK for a holding company for part of WeWork’s international business. The figure was down from £153M the year before, principally due to higher revenue.