NEW YORK: The We Company, parent of workspace provider WeWork, said on Wednesday it has created a $2.9 billion real estate investment platform with funding from one of Canada’s largest pension funds, building on ties with private equity firm the Rhone Group.
The platform, called ARK, has gained $1 billion from Canada’s Ivanhoe Cambridge, the property arm of Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, the Montreal-based company said.
WeWork, founded in 2010, is now New York’s largest tenant as it leases space from landlords to clients ranging from startups to Fortune 500 companies on a short-term basis.
WeWork is at the forefront of a structural shift in how real estate is bought, leased and consumed that will leave behind the landlords and investors who ignore the disruption, said Jonathan Pearce, and executive vice president at Ivanhoe Cambridge.
WeWork and other flexible workspace providers are creating a new marketplace for real estate and reducing the industry’s multiple inefficiencies, he said. “We don’t think this is a fad,” Pearce said in an interview. “Every single aspect of the business is going to change.”
— Reuters
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