![]() Smith called the partnership an “unholy alliance that will ensure no other media company will ever stand a chance against Vice’s relentless onslaught.” In April 2011, Vice added MTV founder Tom Freston to its board of directors, enlisted media merchant bank The Raine Group to help land deals and inked a partnership with WME to represent it in Hollywood. Built by the salesmanship of co-founder Shane Smith, the brand unveiled Vice Broadcasting Systems TV as its initial major foray into digital video production in 2007.īut its time of rapid expansion and growth arrived a few years later. The company, founded in Montreal in 1994 as an edgy and purposely offensive print magazine that changed its name to Vice two years later, has grown into a sprawling, Brooklyn-based global media conglomerate with multiple web verticals and a large video production division. In the meantime, its lenders are funding Vice with $20 million during the bankruptcy process. Vice hopes to emerge from the bankruptcy process in two or three months and entered into an agreement to sell itself to a consortium of buyers, including Fortress Investment Group, Soros Fund Management and Monroe Capital, for a $225 million credit bid and assumption of liabilities. Pometti also confirmed the company “is reducing its news related workforce during May and June 2023.” Since scrapping plans for an initial public offering, Vice Media has sought multiple suitors while undergoing a series of cost-cutting measures and layoffs capped by the cancellation of its flagship show Vice News Tonight in late April. ![]() “We will have new ownership, a simplified capital structure and the ability to operate without the legacy liabilities that have been burdening our business,” stated Dixon and Lokhandwala as the filing was announced. The move caps more than a year of uncertainty for the embattled media giant, which has been led by co-CEOs Bruce Dixon and Hozefa Lokhandwala in 2023 after the departure of chief Nancy Dubuc and global president Jesse Angelo. Although these fund-raising efforts helped to finance VICE’s growth, they ultimately led to the Company being burdened by a highly leveraged and unusually complex capital structure.” “As a result, VICE relied on external funding, raising both debt and equity capital to fuel its rapid growth and to fund expenses in certain parts of its businesses. ![]() Pometti, a consultant hired as the chief restructuring officer of Vice Media, in a declaration filing. “Like many other growth companies in the media and technology sectors, VICE has been cash flow negative for the past several years,” wrote Frank A. The declaration also gives a window into a vast constellation of LLCs that make up Vice Media’s holdings, from its Studios and Pulse Films unit to its co-partnerships globally. Tech firm Wipro, Amazon Web Services, ad agency Horizon Media, Greek media giant Antenna TV and photo giant Getty Images are also among creditors. ![]() Given that Vice lists $350 million in assets, many creditors are likely to take a loss during Chapter 11 proceedings.Īmong them, CNN Productions is listed as having a $3,798,333 claim, HBO is listed as having a claim of $1,763,157 while A&E Networks is listed as having a claim of $937,500, per the filing. The filing estimates there are more than 5,000 creditors. While its largest creditors include Fortress Investment Group (with a $474.6 million claim), there’s several media companies that are listed as top unsecured creditors that aren’t insiders, as outlined in its filing in the United States Bankruptcy Court for Southern District of New York on Monday. As Vice Media, the brash company that once had ambitions of replacing legacy news giants, files for bankruptcy protection, with $834 million in debt obligations, its finances are coming into focus.
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