From the most highly valued American unicorn to a capital black hole, WeWork "shocked" the world in another way.

WeWork recently announced that WeWork China received an additional investment of US$200 million from Zhixin Capital.

It is reported that after the completion of this investment, Zhixin Capital’s shareholding ratio in WeWork China has exceeded half, which means that WeWork has sold its Chinese business.

At the same time, WeWork China has also welcomed a new CEO - Jiang Yueping, operating partner of Zhixin Capital, will serve as its acting CEO.

From the overwhelming success when it first entered China, to the end of the story, people can't help but wonder what happened to WeWork?

Founded in 2010, WeWork mainly provides exclusive office space for entrepreneurs, freelancers, small businesses and employees of large companies. At its peak, its business covered 32 countries and regions, with a total of 270,000 members, almost

Become synonymous with "first-class office".

WeWork has long been coveting the Chinese market. Li Kaixian, managing director of WeWork Asia, said in an interview with the media: "The Chinese market has huge potential. WeWork is full of confidence in the Chinese market. China may become one of WeWork's largest markets in the world." Early

In 2016, WeWork opened its first office in Shanghai.

A year later, WeWork joined hands with Chinese investment company Hony Capital and Japan's SoftBank Group to formally establish WeWork China. In 2018, WeWork China received investment from Zhixin Capital, Temasek Holdings, SoftBank Group, SoftBank Vision Fund and Hony Capital.

* Totaled US$500 million in Series B financing to further accelerate its business growth in China, and acquired naked Hub, a Chinese co-working office company, at a high price of 2.5 billion yuan that year.

At that time, WeWork was active in business reports as a myth, with a valuation of US$45 billion, but it never imagined that this would be its final highlight.

A few months later, as IPO documents were gradually released, investors began to question this super unicorn.

The prospectus shows that WeWork's US parent company had a net loss of US$1.9 billion in 2018, total liabilities of approximately US$22 billion, and long-term debt of US$1.342 billion.

In addition, within two months of submitting the application, WeWork staged a series of unforeseen events such as the resignation of the founder, cashing out company assets, and institutional divestment, which also caused great distrust in the capital market for WeWork's future. The valuation dropped from 45 billion

The US dollar shrank sharply to US$8 billion, and the originally ambitious listing plan was eventually forced to be withdrawn and turned into a joke.

At the same time, the situation of WeWork China is also not optimistic. According to statistics, from January to June 2019, WeWork China's revenue was only US$7.3 million, accounting for only 4% of global revenue.

The biggest reason behind this is that the localization process is slow, which leads to high rents and a continuous increase in the vacancy rate of WeWork, which relies on refined management.

According to the Financial Times, 65.3% of WeWork's 8,000 desks in Shenzhen are idle, and the office idle rate in Xi'an reaches 78.5%. It is reported that in order to break even, WeWork needs to maintain an average of at least 65%

Occupancy rate.

Now, after Zhixin Capital takes over WeWork China, the new CEO Jiang Yueping said that he will turn WeWork China into a completely Chinese-owned holding company.

Industry insiders commented that for WeWork China, any sale for more than 1 yuan is good news; for the industry, it just proves another case of acclimatization, and new companies will take its place.

It’s not just WeWork. In fact, store closings, layoffs, unpaid commissions, and huge lawsuits have become the norm in the entire shared office industry. And the drama of “forced change of ownership” like WeWork China has already happened in the domestic shared office industry.

The office brand Krypton Space has gone through this before.

In May 2019, Krypton Space, which was at the center of public opinion at that time, received a financing of 1 billion yuan, jointly led by IDG Capital, Gopher Asset, and Yixing Capital.

At the same time, the company's management was shaken.

Wang Xuequan, a partner of Gopher Asset Real Estate Fund, served as CEO and was in charge of the business operations. Jiang Xi, a partner of Inno Angel Fund, served as executive president. IDG Capital also sent people to the company.

Behind all this is the immovable capital and the embarrassment of having no way out of the private office.