WeWork to Open Office in South Africa

NEW YORK CITY—WeWork is saying “Wamukelekile” or “welcome” in Zulu, the most widely spoken language in South Africa. The co-working space, community and service provider is scheduled to open its first office in Africa at the Link building, at 173 Oxford Road in Rosebank, Johannesburg during the third quarter of 2019. They will be leasing six floors of the nine-story building.

“Johannesburg is home to a huge number of innovative and established businesses as well as entrepreneurs and startups, and we’re looking forward to learning from those who join our community of 400,000 members across 400 locations around the world,” says Eugen Miropolski, managing director, WeWork International. “Forty percent of our enterprise members say they chose WeWork because they wanted a more creative entrepreneurial environment, and we hope our new locations in South Africa will offer just that—a dynamic space to grow South African businesses, and connect business from around the world to South Africa.”

WeWork signed a participatory lease or revenue sharing agreement with the landlord Redefine Properties. The company notes it wants to partner with landlords and offer a range of options including joint ventures, participating leases and management agreements. WeWork says this will allow it to secure more space and minimize risk while allowing partners to share in the upside.

Reuters wrote that a source familiar with the deal explained the revenue-sharing lease “‘broadly means the rent would depend on the revenue it generates from subletting the space.” The news source also reported that according to WeWork’s financial results released in August, it reported a net loss of $723 million for the first half of 2018 compared to $154 million from a year before.