Days after it was reported that American ‘liberal’ media company Buzzfeed is shutting down its news division, it has been reported that Vice Media is reportedly prepping to file for bankruptcy.
According to the New York Times, the company, whose holdings include Vice News, Motherboard, Refinery29, and Vice TV, has been in negotiations with at least five companies in an attempt to avert bankruptcy.
Vice was valued at USD 5.7 billion in 2017 following an investment round from the private-equity company TPG. However, by most accounts, it is now only worth just a portion of that amount.
According to the NYT report, in the case of bankruptcy, Vice’s largest debtholder, Fortress Investment Group, could ultimately end up owning the company. With Fortress in the lead as the most likely acquirer, Vice would carry on operations as usual while conducting a 45-day auction to sell the company.
“Vice Media Group has been engaged in a comprehensive evaluation of strategic alternatives and planning. The company, its board and stakeholders continue to be focused on finding the best path for the company,” the company spokesperson told Reuters.
This comes just a week after the company announced the discontinuation of its popular Vice News Tonight show, which resulted in numerous layoffs. The company’s global operations restructuring affected its Asia-Pacific newsroom.
In March this year, an Indian journalist Pallavi Pundir working as a senior reporter at the Vice World News wrote an article sympathizing with the Khalistan leader Amritpal Singh. Pundir dubbed Amritpal who recently surrendered before the Punjab Police a “charismatic Sikh leader” and also downplayed his secessionist activities as a fight for “self-determination” for the Indian Sikhs.
Moreover, Vice India in January shared a photo of a “pure vegetarian” restaurant and tried to shame Indians for casteism over it and attack Hinduism. In their caption of the photo, Vice wrote, “Do eateries need to promote being #pureveg and, by doing so, do they uphold #casteist ideas and practices?”
However, OpIndia reported that the image of the “pure veg” restaurant Vice India shared was of a restaurant in an Islamic country—United Arab Emirates (UAE).
