Provocative startup was once valued at $5.7 billionExBulletin

Vice Media, the forward-thinking digital media startup known for its provocative visual storytelling and punchy, explicit voice filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy early Monday.

A group of Vice lenders is set to buy the beleaguered company’s assets for $225 million and take on significant liabilities, listed between $500 million and $1 billion, according to the deposit in federal court in New York. This group, which includes Fortress Investment Group and Soros Fund Management, loaned it $20 million to keep it afloat during the sale process, during which other lenders can make higher offers.

“This expedited, court-supervised sale process will strengthen the company and position VICE for long-term growth,” co-CEOs Bruce Dixon and Hozefa Lokhandwala wrote in a statement. statement. “We look forward to completing the sale process within the next two to three months and charting a healthy and successful next chapter at VICE.”

Vice Media said it intended to continue paying its remaining employees and vendors throughout the process and keep senior management in place.

The company had tried unsuccessfully to find a buyer willing to pay its billion-plus asking price. Even that was only a fraction of what investors once believed it was worth.

Investors valued the company, founded in 1994 as a Montreal-based punk magazine, at $5.7 billion in 2017. Vice had previously attracted major backers including 21st Century Fox and Disney. The latter invested a total of $400 million in the business but wrote it off as a loss in 2019.

Bankruptcy follows high-profile layoffs and departures

Last month, the company announced layoffs at its global newsroom and closed its international journalism arm, Vice World News. It also canceled its weekly broadcast program, “Vice News Tonight,” which debuted in 2016 and topped 1,000 episodes in March.

The company oversees a variety of brands, including women’s lifestyle site Refinery29, which it acquired in 2019 for $400 million. She also owns British fashion magazine iD and in-house design agency Virtue, among others.

Deputy chief executive Nancy Dubuc left the company in February after five years at the helm, a position she held during a tumultuous time for the newsroom.

Newsroom Considers Sexual Harassment and Misconduct

Vice Media laid off three employees in December 2017 following complaints from a handful of employees about corporate culture.

“The conduct of these employees ranged from verbal and sexual harassment to other behaviors inconsistent with our policies,” Susan Tohyama, Vice’s then chief human resources officer, said in a statement. business note.

Shortly after, co-founder Shane Smith stepped down as CEO and the company hired media veteran Dubuc to replace him.

“Platforms can and will change. Infrastructures can become more
streamlined, organized and dynamic. The numbers fluctuate,” Dubuc wrote in a memo to staff introducing himself in 2018. “At the end of the day, though, it’s the content that each of you has helped create that makes us truly great. I see endless potential in VICE.”

Last February, as the board sought buyers to acquire the company, Dubuc bid farewell to Vice staff in another internal memo praising the company’s success despite “unprecedented macroeconomic headwinds caused by the pandemic, the war in Ukraine and the economy,” she wrote. “I’m proud to leave a better Vice than the one I joined.”

Difficult times for digital media

Vice is the latest casualty in a media industry decimated by a slowdown in digital advertising and a changing appetite for news.

Last month, BuzzFeed News, which was hailed for capturing a rare young audience and won a Pulitzer Prize for international reporting in 2021, closed its doors.

Other newsrooms, including NPR, CNN, ABC News and Insider, also made layoffs this year.