Adam Neumann, WeWork’s ousted chief executive, has given up on his bid to buy back the company he co-founded.

This comes less than three weeks after signaling publicly his acquisition ambition wasn't dead.

“For several months, we tried to work constructively with WeWork to create a strategy that would allow it to thrive,” Neumann said in an emailed statement to CoStar News. “Instead, the company looks to be emerging from bankruptcy with a plan that appears unrealistic and unlikely to succeed.”

A WeWork spokesperson declined to comment on Neumann’s statement, coming just two days ahead of WeWork’s scheduled confirmation hearing Thursday to exit bankruptcy protection. The news, reported earlier by the New York Times, also follows the WeWork bankruptcy court judge dealing Neumann a setback this month by approving WeWork’s request for interim new financing that overruled an objection from his investor group collectively under the name of Neumann’s real estate firm, Flow.

Still, even with the knowledge of that development, Neumann said at the Bloomberg Technology Summit in San Francisco on May 9 that his attempt to acquire the company he co-founded in 2010 wasn’t over. A Flow attorney previously told CoStar News that "there'll be robust objections to confirming" WeWork's reorganization plan.

Flow offered to buy WeWork for $650 million in March and provide debtor-in-possession financing of up to $250 million, subject to due diligence. Flow has previously said it was willing to up its bid.

Still, bankruptcy lawyers have said Neumann’s bid in its current form would face challenges as Flow needs to satisfy all secured claims and get buy-in from lenders and creditors. They said WeWork’s confirmation hearing on Thursday would have been his last opportunity to convince the bankruptcy judge otherwise.

WeWork’s advisers have argued Flow’s proposal is not “actionable” as it needs to clear $4 billion in secured debt that WeWork had before it filed for bankruptcy. WeWork’s Bankruptcy Court Judge John Sherwood has echoed similar points in past hearings.

As part of its reorganization plan, WeWork has said it’s reached agreements with stakeholders, including Japan-based investment giant SoftBank, an ad hoc group including asset manager BlackRock, and Cupar Grimmond, an investment arm of WeWork’s workplace management software partner Yardi, to tap $50 million in debtor-in-possession financing on an interim basis ahead of its bankruptcy exit and for another $400 million at the time of its emergence from bankruptcy.

The arrangement would result in Yardi becoming WeWork's majority owner with a 60% stake, as it’s giving most of the new money, while the ad hoc group would have about a 20% stake. SoftBank’s stake would fall to 16.5% unless WeWork taps some undrawn letters of credit from the Japanese firm.

Over 98% of WeWork’s secured lenders, as well as WeWork’s official committee of unsecured creditors and a separate group representing its unsecured noteholders, have approved the company’s reorganization plan, a WeWork attorney has said.

WeWork also has been attempting to renegotiate leases with landlords to cut its lease expenses, the biggest challenge to WeWork becoming profitable. The company has said it hopes to turn profitable next year after emerging from bankruptcy protection and end this year with an occupancy rate of 76%, which it projects will rise to 85% by the end of 2028.

WeWork said recently it’s settled on the fate of over 97% of its global, wholly owned lease locations, adding it's projected to reduce its total rent commitments by over $11 billion. The company said it expects to operate more than 170 locations across the United States and Canada and 337 locations globally after it emerges from Chapter 11, down from about 500 it had in June 2023.

Neumann was removed as WeWork’s CEO in 2019 over corporate governance concerns when the money-losing company failed in its first attempt at going public with a valuation of $47 billion. That figure plunged to $9 billion when shares eventually started trading on the New York Stock Exchange in October 2021. WeWork filed for bankruptcy in early November after years of signing expensive leases at the cost of profit under Neumann.

Neumann has previously said WeWork’s reorganization plan calls for selling 80% of WeWork’s post-bankruptcy equity for $400 million to Cupar/Yardi, and possibly other consenting stakeholders. The price reflects just $500 million of equity value, he said, far short of the $650 million Flow offered.

He also criticized WeWork’s financial projections as “unsustainable in light of the razor-thin margin for error baked into the plan’s financial projections” and said those forecasts “predict a hockey-stick type of increase in occupancy percentage.”

WeWork is a tenant in a Virginia building CoStar Group acquired earlier this year, making CoStar a creditor in the case. CoStar competes with Yardi in providing real estate data.