[mlthoughts2018]

But it does impact your appraisal of their net present value, since you know their future income streams have to exceed at least that obligation plus other operating costs.

I think it’s fair for their rent obligation to contribute to the concern about their business in this sense.

Yes, it’s not like an immediate obligation of $18 billion. But the effect on a net present value calculation of a company already operating on big losses is still very important.

[shimms]

Agreed - just haven't seen future cashflow obligations referred to as "owe" in the same way, except for when discussing WeWork, so (to me) comes across disingenuous given the lack of consistency in application.

[kgwgk]

It’s pretty standard use. Owing is not about being late on payments or in default.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/15/heres-how-much-the-average-s...

https://usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/2017/11/18/...

[shimms]

Again they're loans not lease obligations - different.

You can sublease or assign your obligations in a lease, typically you can't assign a loan in the same way.

Edit:

To clarify, when the average household talks about their family debt, they don't include the future lease payments that they're liable to pay over the remaining term of their family home's lease in their calculation - that is (rightfully) an expense, not a liability.

They do think about their mortgage though in terms of net worth and debt position.

[kgwgk]

Actually I was replying to your previous claim that "owe" "is used colloquially to mean currently in arrears/default". Colloquially "owe" means "in debt". According to the dictionary "to be under obligation to pay or repay". To what extent other liabilities (leases, pension fund obligations, whatever) can be assimilated to loans is a different question.

You're right that only WeWork appears in the news in these terms, but WeWork is an unusual case. I would be interested to know if there are other companies in a similar situation.

[shimms]

Gotcha, sorry - I guess you're right, doesn't mean immediately due, or past due, I just don't think of leases as owing, just a commitment to pay, which might be splitting hairs.

In the linked article of this thread though, and a few others I've read specifically about WeWork, it feels like it is used to imply a currently due debt that they can't pay, mostly for dramatic effect I imagine.

Someone else had some comments in another part of this thread about other companies with large plant/equipment leases receiving similar commentary, such as expensive data centers.

[freehunter]

You only hear it on businesses that have substantial future cashflow obligations, which most startups don't. That's levied against anything with capital. I've heard it used against scooter and bike rental companies, I've heard it used any time a company has its own datacenter instead of AWS, etc.

Of course Uber and Basecamp and Reddit and Dropbox and other unicorns don't have this kind of criticism, because they don't have the same amount of heavy plant capital that WeWork has.

Look at any thread about a company building/buying a datacenter and you'll see the same argument. It's a bad idea because if they shrink in the future they're stuck with capital they can't pay for and now they go out of business. Only in this case, they can't shrink any more because they're already massively unprofitable, PLUS they have ungodly amounts of debt obligations.

[shimms]

Fair call, and good distinction to draw.