WeWork burnt through $1.4bn in the final three months of 2019, nearly all the cash injection its principal backer SoftBank provided, as costs from opening new buildings and laying off thousands of employees mounted.
The company said it ended the year with $4.4bn of cash and commitments, according to a letter WeWork chief executive Sandeep Mathrani and executive chairman Marcelo Claure sent to bondholders on Thursday that was reviewed by the Financial Times.
Last October, SoftBank injected $1.5bn of cash into WeWork as part of an emergency bailout that gave it control of the group. But promises of more funding in the future have been thrown into doubt in recent days as SoftBank threatened to walk away from a share purchase deal.