Vice Media Files for Bankruptcy

thewrap.com:

Chapter 11 filing, Vice has estimated liabilities between $500 million to $1 billion. The filing states that Vice’ management “has determined that it is advisable and in the best interest of the Vice Group Companies to enter into a stalking horse agreement for the sale of substantially all assets and related auction procedures.” In a “stalking horse” agreement, potential buyers are lined up in advance of the bankruptcy filing.“This accelerated court-supervised sale process will strengthen the Company and position Vice for long-term growth, thereby safeguarding the kind of authentic journalism and content creation that makes Vice such a trusted brand for young people and such a valued partner to brands, agencies and platforms,” Vice co-CEOs Bruce Dixon and Hozefa Lokhandwala said in a statement. “We will have new ownership, a simplified capital structure and the ability to operate without the legacy liabilities that have been burdening our business.

We look forward to completing the sale process in the next two to three months and charting a healthy and successful next chapter at Vice.”According to the Chapter 11 filing, Vice owes money to a variety of creditors, including $474,648,153 to Fortress Credit Corporation, $20,939,275 to Pulse Film owners Thomas Benski and Marisa Clifford and B&C 3, LLC, $9,841,275 to J.P.

Morgan Chase and $539,732 to ConEdison for utilities. It also owes nearly $10 million to the IT consulting firm Wipro LLC, $3.8 million to CNN Productions, and approximately $6 million to Antenna TV.

Other creditors include Workday, Adobe, Ranker, Getty Images, Amazon Web Services, Piano Software, Salesforce, Wolftech, Asana, and Oracle.