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Who is Anant Yardi? 5 points on Indian-origin, IIT Delhi alum who is WeWork’s majority stake owner
Indian-origin Anant Yardi is an IIT Delhi graduate based in California. He and his wife run their own business, Yardi Systems.
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Indian-origin Anant Yardi became the majority stake owner of the bankrupt coworking giant WeWork. An IIT Delhi graduate, he immigrated from India in 1968 and started his own business with his wife, Yardi Systems. David Tolley will continue as the CEO of the organisation.
“While Yardi will become the majority owner of the business and is CEO of Yardi Systems, WeWork will be operated separately. Currently, David Tolley is still CEO of WeWork," said a company spokesperson.
1. About his company in the US
The engineer from India started Yardi Systems, which sells property management software to commercial and residential landlords, reported the Financial Times. Currently, it is a multibillion-dollar family-owned company.
2. Yardi's investment in WeWork
Yardi invested more than $200mn in equity and debt through an anonymous vehicle less than two years ago and spent another $337.5 million just about two months ago. This was to counter an offer by WeWork co-founder and former CEO Adam Neumann, who wanted to get back into the company.
Neumann founded the company in 2010, which became worth $47 billion by 2019. However, he stepped down as CEO after questions were raised about his dealings in the company’s IPO filing. Subsequently, the company filed for bankruptcy.
3. Why did Yardi choose to take up the position?
In an interview with the outlet, the business tycoon said, “WeWork is such a popular and well-known brand, it didn’t seem right to let it go down".
“I realise financial decisions are not made on right and wrong. But there’s also a tremendous opportunity in terms of turning around WeWork,” he added.
4. The future plan
As per the outlet, Yerdi wants to expand WeWork's marketing to small businesses after the bankruptcy. "Our view of co-working is that it's an interesting combination of hospitality or hotelling, apartment leasing and commercial leasing," he told the outlet.
5. What did Anant Yardi study?
In addition to his BTech from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi, he has an MS in Engineering from the University of California at Berkeley. Before starting his own company, he worked at the Burroughs Corporation for 14 years. There, he was responsible for developing programming methodologies and directing systems development.
The outlet reported that Yardi Systems and WeWork's relationship first started in 2022 on a product involving data analytics and office management. In early 2023, the co-working giant reached out to Yardi regarding its debts. The tech company then agreed to buy $175mn in secured notes. It also arranged for the purchase of $40mn in shares by a "legal entity called Cupar Grimmond". It was later disclosed that Yardi is behind the pseudonym Cupar.
"I'm hoping that over the course of time, most people will know RentCafe and WeWork," Yardi said, referring to an online rent payment platform which Yardi Systems runs.
(An earlier version of the report stated Anant Yardi is the new CEO of WeWork.)
