UPDATED Jan. 27, 2022, 6:16 p.m.: Marcelo Claure is leaving SoftBank amid a disagreement over his request for a compensation package that could have reached $2 billion, according to multiple reports.
Claure, the chief operating officer of SoftBank and executive chairman of WeWork, could step down this week, as CNBC first reported.
Claure has been COO of the Japanese investment company since 2018 after leading Sprint. He was tasked with cleaning up some of SoftBank’s most troubled investments, notably WeWork, where he stepped in just over two years ago.
Last year, working with WeWork CEO Sandeep Mathrani, he helped take the co-working company public through a special purpose acquisition company.
Word of Claure’s departure comes after reports about a dispute with SoftBank over money. Claure was reportedly seeking up to $2 billion partly as a reward for restructuring WeWork, according to the New York Times.
Claure, who led SoftBank’s Latin American investment fund, was also at odds with SoftBank over his responsibilities, according to a person familiar with the matter. The person said the scope of assets Claure oversaw was shrinking, which was a point of contention.
Claure worked closely with SoftBank chairman and CEO Masayoshi Son, who tapped him to fix WeWork’s issues upon paying the co-working company’s co-founder Adam Neumann to step down as CEO in 2019.
Claure managed to take WeWork public, an achievement that had eluded Neumann, but the company is still deeply unprofitable. It lost $802 million in the third quarter.
Michel Combes, the president of SoftBank Group International, will take over Claure’s role of overseeing SoftBank’s international operations, according to the Times.
Claure has purchased a few homes in Miami Beach. In 2020, he bought a teardown at 5212 North Bay Road, paying $11.1 million for the waterfront property with plans to build a mansion. In July, he sold a 9,400-square-foot house at 2060 North Bay Road for $32.3 million.
The post WeWork’s Marcelo Claure to leave SoftBank: reports appeared first on The Real Deal Los Angeles.
Powered by WPeMatico