WeWork International made a £75.9m pre-tax loss in 2018, up from £7.6m a year earlier.
The losses have contributed to a shareholder deficit of £75.3m, compared with £4m in 2018.
WeWork International is a UK-registered holding body which takes care of internal costs for WeWork’s European operations including payroll, marketing and start-up expenses not connected to buildings.
The hike in losses was largely driven by a rise in “management fee expenses” – a fee charged by the We Company for support services – which shot up from £1.7m to £48.4m.
Moreover, the firm’s rapid expansion efforts led to staff costs for internal operations doubling last year to £31.9m, from £15.3m a year earlier, with total staff hired by WeWork HQ more than doubling to 440 in 12 months.
The results do not include rental income from properties. The company has filed separate accounts for three London buildings – Moor Place, EC2, which opened in 2015, and 3 Waterhouse, EC1, and 2 Eastbourne Terrace, w2, which both opened in 2016. Each building made profit of more than £3m in 2018.
The firm said in a statement: “WeWork International Limited is a services holding company that primarily exists to hold centralised set-up costs for UK and European operations, and receives revenues only as a small percentage of building profits, collected as a management fee. Its financial performance is therefore not a representation of the health and profitability of the overall UK business.”
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