On October 22, 2019, The We Company (“WeWork”), a commercial real estate company, and SoftBank Group Corp., a prominent investor in technology companies, announced an agreement under which SoftBank will provide significant funding to WeWork. Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati is serving as legal advisor to the special committee of WeWork’s board of directors in the transaction.

The agreement includes $5 billion in new financing and the launching of a tender offer by SoftBank of up to $3 billion for existing WeWork shareholders. Additionally, SoftBank will be accelerating an existing commitment to fund $1.5 billion. After closing, and following the tender offer, SoftBank’s fully diluted economic ownership of WeWork will be approximately 80 percent.

The WSGR team representing the special committee of WeWork’s board of directors in the transaction includes the following attorneys:

Corporate
Larry Sonsini, Senior and Founding Partner
Douglas Schnell, Partner
Donna Petkanics, Partner
Philip Wong, Associate
Helen Qi, Associate

Employee Benefits & Compensation
John Aguirre, Partner
Michelle Wallin, Partner
Jaqueline Tokuda, Associate

Delaware Law and Corporate Governance
Amy Simmerman, Partner
Nate Emeritz, Of Counsel
James Griffin-Stanco, Associate
Jason Schoenberg, Associate

Tax
Jonathan Zhu, Partner
Derek Wallace, Of Counsel