Co-working Spaces (Holy WeWork Batman)

Brookfield Asset Management Inc. and Onex Corp. are reportedly prepping a $3.7b offer to purchase IWG Plc, a commercial real estate company and office space owner. Those who have been around the restructuring industry long enough will recall that IWG is the successor entity to Regus, which filed for bankruptcy nearly 15 years ago after it expanded too quickly in the midst of the dot-com boom. Now, putting aside "location location location," which, admittedly, is, uh, we guess kind of a big deal in real estate, it's important to note that IWG actually owns its office space. It also has nearly 3k locations. Its main competitor, WeWork, in contrast, does not own most of its 283 lease rejections...uh, oops, we mean, locations. Which, naturally, means that it is valued at 7x BAM and Onex's offer for IWG. Because, you know, pixy dust. 

Since we're on the topic of WeWork, we might as well note that news out of its WeLive division has been scant ever since Bloomberg reported a few months ago that the concept wasn't gaining traction. Notably, however, Node, a co-living company based in London and New York just launched its third Bushwick-based location. Things are only going to get harder for WeWork as it tries to justify its lofty valuation.