WeWork is closing lots of locations soon, but it hasn’t said which ones

WeWork is cutting back on office space in a bid to quit hemorrhaging more cash. The coworking company announced Thursday that it lost $568 million for the third quarter—technically an improvement over Q3 2021, which returned a $802 million loss. This was thanks to revenue climbing 24% year-over-year, but underscores the ongoing challenges that WeWork faces as it seeks to emerge fully recovered from 2019’s near collapse.

As part of what it labeled a “portfolio optimization update,” WeWork said it will close approximately 40 “underperforming” U.S. locations. The closures—a loss of about 41,000 work stations in total—are expected to dent revenue, but they’ll save costs, contributing $140 million to WeWork’s annual adjusted core earnings, it said. Shares of the company fell Thursday by as much as 15% on the news, from $2.42 to $2.04.

WeWork said it expects most of those closures to occur during the month of November, meaning within 20 days. However, the company has not publicly disclosed which locations will be affected. Reached for comment by Fast Company, a spokesperson said members at affected locations have been warned of the imminent closures, and CEO Sandeep Mathrani said on an earnings call Thursday that most have already been relocated.

Worldwide, WeWork’s footprint currently includes 801 locations in 39 countries, with some 928,000 work stations and 671,000 memberships. The company added on Thursday that these locations, collectively, have seen a 23% increase in memberships over the past year. Although one year ago, it’s worth remembering that WeWork was just weeks into being a publicly traded company, still steadying itself from cofounder Adam Neumann’s erratic management style and overambitious growth strategy. Once worth as much as $50 billion pre-IPO, WeWork today has a market cap of less than $1.8 billion.

Of those 801 locations globally, only 647 are what WeWork defines as “consolidated locations.” The rest are essentially licensed offices, scattered across international markets like China, India, and Israel, for which the company generates management fees, typically at a rate of 2.75% to 4% of revenues.

WeWork currently lists 242 consolidated locations in the United States, which translates to plans to close 15% of them. New York City has by far the most locations, with 75. Los Angeles and San Francisco come in next, with around 25 each. But the company is active in about two dozen additional U.S. markets, from Miami to Seattle and Salt Lake City to Raleigh-Durham.

This post has been updated with information from WeWork.