The Vice Media office in Amsterdam. Photo: Vice Media Kit.
Vice Media, a prominent digital media company, has made the decision to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
The company plans to sell its assets, worth between $500 million and $1 billion, to a consortium of lenders, including Fortress Investment Group, Soros Fund Management, and Monroe Capital, in exchange for $225 million in credit.
Despite the bankruptcy filing, Vice’s media brands will continue producing content, and the company has committed to honoring its financial obligations to employees and vendors.
The sale of assets is projected to conclude within the next two to three months.
Vice’s co-CEOs, Bruce Dixon and Hozefa Lokhandwala, expressed confidence that the court-supervised sale process will position the company for long-term growth and enable the preservation of authentic journalism and content creation.
Vice Media, which began as a punk magazine in Montreal in 1994 before expanding into a global media company, has faced challenges in recent years, struggling to turn profits and experiencing a decline in digital advertising revenue.
The bankruptcy filing follows the cancellation of Vice’s flagship program, “Vice News Tonight,” and the discontinuation of its Vice World News brand.
