Indication of Weakening Economy?: SoftBank to Slash Planned WeWork Investment From $16B to Just $2B

WeWork office space

Japan’s SoftBank has radically scaled back plans for a fresh investment in WeWork, the shared-office provider, following the recent tech stock rout and concerns among investors in its Vision Fund.

The Japanese tech investor will inject only $2 billion into the company, down from a planned $16 billion.

The scaling-back of the planned $16 billion investment, which would have been the largest ever in a tech start-up, underlines the rapid shift in investor enthusiasm for technology shares that is now spilling into even the best-known privately held groups, comments the Financial Times.

Shares in SoftBank itself have fallen by 33 per cent in the past three months.

This is the first major league news out of Silicon Valley that might indicate developing weakness.

-RW