WeWork is working on plan to reprice stock options

[NEW YORK] WeWork is working on a plan to reprice stock options held by employees, including those who have left, executive chairman Marcelo Claure told its staff on Friday.

The office-sharing giant plans to set a new strike price of US$4.12 for stock options held by employees who have departed or are leaving as part of a sweeping round of 2,400 layoffs, said people familiar with the matter. It will also apply to current employees, said the people, who requested anonymity because the matter is private.

The move would allow workers, whose shares have lost value, to still make potential future gains on their equity holdings.

The company will "provide all employees, as well as those who recently left us as part of the restructuring, with the opportunity to participate in an exchange offer that allows for the repricing of options at our new fair market value," WeWork said in a statement.

Executives at SoftBank Group Corp are looking for a way to reduce the size of a US$3 billion offer for WeWork stock as part of its rescue package, but it's unclear how it would renege on this, Bloomberg has reported. Many WeWork employees have strike prices for their stock that are above the US$19.19 that SoftBank will pay as part of that offer.

Any stock purchased via the exchange offer will not be eligible to be tendered in the Softbank offer in part because of the onerous tax burden it would create, a person familiar with the matter said.

BLOOMBERG