![]() ![]() “Vice’s liquidity situation is a result of operating losses and the company’s inability to pay debt that was separate from TPG’s investment,” it added. “We actively supported Vice throughout our investment and despite not controlling the company, we worked tirelessly with its leadership to enhance its profitability,” TPG said in a statement. Another investor described TPG’s involvement as “choking the company to death”. (Many former Vice executives and investors interviewed for this article requested anonymity due to the legal proceedings James Murdoch declined a request for comment.)Ī different person close to Vice described the TPG-Vice relationship as an ill-constructed marriage: two attractive and accomplished people who got quickly hitched only to realise that they were incompatible. “ was very disappointed and upset at position,” says one person close to the situation. Some Vice investors and former executives, including shareholder James Murdoch, the son of Fox Corporation chair Rupert Murdoch, blame TPG for Vice’s demise. It raises questions about the tactics of private equity companies, which have in recent years earned a reputation as the curse of the US news media, gutting newspapers for short-term profits. In a few months, the company that staked its reputation on being edgy and irreverent – publishing stories such as “Here’s everything you need to know about ketamine” and “Twenty hours in a New York strip club” –will be owned by Wall Street lenders. ![]() The fall is also the story of Wall Street colliding with a creative industry that was home to big personalities and towering egos. Months later, his 21st Century Fox group invested $US70 million in Vice. ![]() In 2012, Rupert Murdoch drank tequila with the bearded, tattooed Smith at Vice’s Brooklyn office. Vice’s demise is the culmination of an era where legacy media and investors put billions into online news start-ups such as BuzzFeed and Vox Media, hoping to capture millennial users and ad dollars. But it didn’t come to bear, and now look at the downfall.” “Shane was always out trying to be the rainmaker … Everybody bought into it. ”You put a big target on your back when you say ‘We know better, we’re the future,’” says a former senior Vice executive. Vice’s overall valuation rests below $US300 million. TPG’s $US450 million bet has been wiped to zero. After a series of disappointing results, years of chaotic management, risky endeavours and a liquidity crisis, Vice has filed for bankruptcy. Shane Smith, co-founder and chief executive officer of Vice Media. ![]() The injection of cash led by private equity group TPG and its then-partner Sixth Street was meant to propel the company towards either a splashy initial public offering or a multibillion-dollar sale. Speaking at an advertising festival in Cannes, with sunglasses on and the French Riviera behind him, the blustering media executive joked with reporters that he “rounds up” Vice’s $US5.7 billion ($8.7 billion) valuation to $US6 billion “because it’s easier to say”.įor years, Vice had been widely regarded as the future of media. When private equity investors put nearly half a billion US dollars into Vice Media in 2017, co-founder Shane Smith hinted that the cash would help his digital media company achieve a public listing that “would look very sexy”. ![]()
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