Kong Wan Sing had to overcome a $600 million M&A disaster—and fend off WeWork—to turn his JustCo co-working company into one of Asia’s fastest-growing startups
ong Wan Sing has bounced back from a brush with entrepreneurial oblivion. Early last year, he walked away from a merger he needed to keep his Singapore-based co-working space operator, JustCo, from being gobbled up by the likes of giant rival WeWork. The deal would have combined JustCo, Southeast Asia’s largest operator, with WeWork’s closest rival in China, Shanghai-based Naked Hub, creating a combined entity valued at roughly $600 million.
JustCo offers larger spaces than most of its competitors for less than WeWork; a desk at JustCo starts at below $300 a month, compared with $400 and up at WeWork. WeWork declined to comment for this article. Over a steak dinner, they bonded over their shared vision. A merger seemed a foolproof way to fend off WeWork. “He’d look after China, and I’d look after outside China,” Kong says, “and conquer Asia together.”
Kong also started talking to Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund GIC in 2016 about an investment into JustCo. Kong’s shareholders were still gung-ho for a merger, though. “They all kept telling me to swallow whatever ego you have,” says Kong. Late one night the following January, however, he called with his decision: the merger was off. Kong then told GIC the news, he says, and suggested they might want to consider investing in Naked Hub alone.
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