Soho House is going private in a $2.7 billion deal, just four years after its IPO.
The deal, led by industry giant MCR Hotels, follows a series of financial struggles for the private member club operator, which pursued rapid global expansion and helped popularize a new generation of less formal and business-oriented member clubs.
But some investors and members worried that growth undermined the exclusivity that Soho House built its brand on.
A short seller argued last year the company had a “broken business model and terrible accounting” that was “eerily similar to WeWork,” the shared office space provider that fell into bankruptcy.