Courtesy of Pam Martens
Purchase of Lord & Taylor Flagship Store in Manhattan Was Financed With a $600 Million Loan from JPMorgan Chase and $50 Million from WeWork
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens
According to the amended prospectus filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission to alert the public to the thousands of warts with malignant possibilities sprouting out of the office rental company, WeWork, which plans to offer its shares to the public for the first time, JPMorgan Chase will receive something no other underwriter is getting in this deal: a cool $50 million extra as a “structuring fee.” On top of that, of course, the bank will also get the fat underwriting fees that the other banks involved in the IPO get.
That’s just one of the many curious ways that JPMorgan Chase stands out in its relationship with WeWork. (The parent of WeWork, The We Company, is actually offering the shares to the public.) As it turns out, quite a few of JPMorgan Chase’s commercial real estate clients who have obtained massive loans from the bank are benefitting from WeWork taking out big leases in their buildings, helping JPMorgan Chase’s clients thus have a lower vacancy rate and thus a smaller chance of defaulting on their loans to the bank. Those corporate clients include Rudin Management; L&L Holding Company; and Midwood Investment and Development, to name just a few.
JPMorgan Chase is also one of three banks that has given an eye-popping $500 million line of credit to WeWork’s CEO, Adam Neumann, a 40-year old who previously lived in a kibbutz in Israel. According to the prospectus, Neumann has drawn down $380 million of the line of credit thus far. In addition, JPMorgan Chase “has made loans and extended credit” to Neumann “totaling $97.5 million across a variety of lending products, including mortgages secured by personal property and unsecured credit lines and letters of credit,” according to the prospectus.
And then there is JPMorgan Chase’s central role in a very, very strange deal that was spun to the public as WeWork having the financial clout to buy the Lord & Taylor flagship store in Manhattan for $850 million in 2017.
…
