A U.S. subsidiary of the Montreal startup began an insolvency process in California, and its British counterpart initiated a similar process, leaving the leases of hundreds of thousands of square feet of office space, spread over 355 offices in the two continents, to be sorted out by creditors. (The Globe and Mail)

Talking point: Breather CEO Bryan Murphy told The Globe and Mail that his company will also attempt to get out of leases on 79 office spaces in Canada in the next 90 days as it attempts to transform itself into an online marketplace for renting other landlords’ flexible office space, rather than a leaseholder itself. Breather had temporarily laid off most of its employees this year, and plans to shrink its workforce down from approximately 120 to just 30 people, Murphy said. He told The Logic in October that Breather had benefited from the pandemic due to the increase in supply of office space available for subleasing or direct leasing. He said at the time that he was “100 per cent confident” the traditional way of working would not resume when the pandemic was over. . Breather had attempted to explore a sale recently, but investors were turned off by the company’s lease commitments. The company has raised over US$150 million since its inception in 2012, from big-name investors like the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, Menlo Ventures and Singapore’s Temasek Holdings.