Vice Media filed for bankruptcy protection, punctuating a relatively rapid decline for the media upstart that once boasted a $5.7 billion (€5.24 billion) valuation.
The Brooklyn-based company listed both assets and liabilities in the range of more than $500 million to as much as $1 billion in a Chapter 11 petition filed in Southern District of New York. Fortress Credit ranked among the biggest secured creditors, with claims totalling about $475 million.
The move caps a tumultuous few months for the firm. Vice shuttered its flagship TV news show and laid off more than 100 staff in late April.
A governing body that includes boards of all group companies recommended that it’s in the best interests of Vice Media, its creditors and other interested parties that it obtains the debtor-in-possession financing that the group firms have negotiated with their existing term lenders, it said in the filing.
Vice secured a $450 million investment from private equity firm TPG in 2017, which valued the firm at $5.7 billion. The figure was startling for a media upstart, especially while so many of its industry peers struggled to generate profits. Other investors have included Walt Disney and Fox.
Vice in the filing estimates it has more than 5,000 creditors and that it would have funds for distribution to unsecured creditors.
Beginning as an alternative magazine in Montreal nearly three decades ago, Vice captured the attention of young viewers globally starting in the mid-aughts with documentary-style videos that sometimes attained viral status. – Bloomberg
