Sandeep Mathrani

Flashback to a year ago and it might be surprising to think that WeWork still earns a spot on this list. (It’s been quite a precipitous fall, though; not too many years ago, its leaders were in the top 10.)

It all started in late 2019 with a very public, failed initial public offering that shined a light on WeWork’s money-burning business model and caused the ousting of its bombastic founder, Adam Neumann. Real estate legend Sandeep Mathrani was brought on in February 2019 to right the ship.

All of this was before a global pandemic that caused most of the world to ditch offices for the security of home. Occupancy rates at WeWork locations fell to 47 percent globally at the end of 2020, a drop from the 72 percent it had at the start of the year.

But it soon became clear that it was premature to count WeWork out. The coworking giant agreed to go public a second time this past March, this time through a special purpose acquisition company that would give WeWork a $1.3 billion cash infusion.

The deal also values WeWork at $9 billion — yes, a far cry from its eye-popping $47 billion valuation in 2019, but a marked improvement from the $2.9 billion last year.

Also, to improve its financials, the company shed 106 underperforming locations around the country, renegotiated leases with owners, laid off staff, and sold acquisitions made under Neumann’s stormy leadership.

As a result, it cut its operating expenses by $1.1 billion, reduced its building operation costs by $400 million, and trimmed its future lease payments by an estimated $4 billion.

But WeWork still isn’t out of the woods yet. The company pulled in $3.2 billion in revenue last year, but still lost $3.2 billion, the Financial Times reported. To be fair, that’s a slight improvement from the $3.5 billion it lost in 2019.

Yet, there’s expected to be a huge demand in the need for flexible leases as workers slowly return to the office, and, with other players closing up shop or declaring bankruptcy, WeWork still remains the dominant player.—N.R.