Can iRobot survive? | 2024's first IPO | WeWork closures
Boston Business Journal
The Boston region's source for local business news & events. Part of the American City Business Journals network.
Welcome to the BBJ's LinkedIn Weekly Edition! I'm Digital Editor?Jess Aloe, bringing you the business knowledge you need this week.
Analysis of a collapsed deal
The end of the deal under which 亚马逊 would have acquired iRobot earlier this week leaves questions about iRobot’s viability going forward.
The deal, announced 18 months ago, envisioned the e-commerce behemoth buying one of the Bay State’s internationally recognized technology brands at a lowered price of $1.45 billion.
Amazon and iRobot agreed to abandon their merger plans as both domestic and international regulators were skeptical of the transaction’s privacy and antitrust ramifications.
The local roboticists, investors and representatives from technology trade groups surveyed by the Boston Business Journal both before and after the merger was called off believed that iRobot will survive the aborted deal. Yet time will tell what shape and size the Bedford-based Roomba maker will take as it grapples with declining sales, increased competition and stock price distress.
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Here's what else happened this week
WeWork closes Back Bay location, stops paying rent
WeWork Inc. has closed its 200 Berkeley St. location in Back Bay and rejected its lease with its landlord, the Boston-based insurance giant John Hancock, in bankruptcy court.
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In addition, the beleaguered coworking company has not paid rent for January for at least two of its other Boston offices. Greg Ryan has the details.
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First IPO of 2024
Fractyl Health began trading on the Nasdaq exchange Friday, the first Mass. company to IPO this year. Read more.
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Steward says it can keep its hospitals open—for now
Steward Health Care System said it has the financing to keep its Massachusetts hospitals open in the short term as it considers transferring ownership of one or more of them. But the details around how such a transfer might happen remain murky, according to several healthcare leaders and others.
The hospital system has more than 1,700 beds in the state, with close to 900 at hospitals deemed at urgent risk—and the for-profit system's financial trouble is coming at a time when Bay State hospitals are already stretched thin. Here's the latest.
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Theo Epstein returns to the Red Sox
The Brookline native who, as a young baseball executive, helped deliver a long-overdue world championship to the Red Sox is now returning to the team as an owner, the Fenway Sports Group announced Friday. Read more.
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