WeWork posted it best sales since its botched 2019 IPO, but its offices are barely half full

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WeWork posted it best sales since its botched 2019 IPO, but its offices are barely half full
A WeWork office in Hangzhou City, Zhejiang Province, China. Costfoto/Barcroft Media via Getty Images
  • WeWork had its best two months of sales since its plans to go public blew up in 2019.
  • Occupancy at its shared offices has grown to 53% as of March.
  • WeWork plans to go public through a blank-check merger.
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After more than a year of video calls from the kitchen table, workers are slowly returning to offices.

And while that's a huge boon for city centers and many workers' mental well-being, it's perhaps an even bigger development for WeWork.

The office-space company said Monday that April and May were its best two months of sales since September 2019, the same month that its plans to go public imploded, kicking off months of turmoil. It's the company's latest sign of recovery after taking a massive hit as businesses deserted offices during the pandemic.

For the first time since 2019, the company has any sold more desks than it lost through cancellations across all the markets where it operates, it said. Additionally, churn rates have returned to pre-pandemic levels, and the company has sold 4.3 million square feet of office space this quarter, it said.

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Occupancy is growing, too. WeWork said 53% of its office space was occupied as of May, up from 50% in March. However, that figure is still down around 20% from its peak occupancy.

There's still plenty of rebound to be had. WeWork's valuation fell from $47 billion to $10 billion during its disastrous 2019 following its indefinitely delayed IPO. The saga also intensified scrutiny of the company's finances and leadership from investors and the media. WeWork founder and CEO Adam Neumann stepped down in September 2019, and the company laid off thousands of employees that November.

Now it's eyeing a public listing once more. WeWork in March announced a deal to merge with a special purpose acquisition company in a deal that values it at $9 billion.

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