San Francisco, May 16 (IANS) Vice Media Group has filed for bankruptcy, and the company's lenders, Fortress Investment Group, Soros Fund Management and Monroe Capital, agreed to purchase the company for $225 million -- just about 4 per cent of the company's highest valuation just over six years ago.

In 2017, Vice Media raised $450 million, valuing the media company at around $5.7 billion. Vice filed voluntary petitions for reorganisation under Chapter 11 in the US Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York to facilitate the sale.  Discord Data Breach: Chat Platform Starts Notifying Users After Third-party Support Agent's Account Was Compromised.

All of its multi-platform media brands, including Vice, Vice News, Vice TV, Vice Studios, Pulse Films, Virtue, Refinery29 and i-D, will continue to produce and deliver award-winning content across platforms.

"We will have new ownership, a simplified capital structure and the ability to operate without the legacy liabilities that have been burdening our business," said Bruce Dixon and Hozefa Lokhandwala, Co-Chief Executive Officers.

"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," they added.

Last month, Vice Media laid off more than 100 employees to restructure its global organisations and shut down its Vice News Tonight broadcast. LG Electronics Sees Low Demand For Home Entertainment Products, TV Factory Ran at 75% Capacity Last Quarter: Reports.

Vice joins a growing list of media companies which shut down businesses and laid off employees recently amid the global macroeconomic conditions.  Several media outlets, like ABC News, NPR, Vox Media, CNN, and others, have laid off staff members recently.

Vice Media Group is a multi-platform media company. Its Emmy and Peabody Award-winning News division just launched its fourth season of VICE on Paramount+ with Showtime, and its coverage of the war in Ukraine has been watched on TikTok by hundreds of millions of people. Happay Layoffs: CRED-Owned Expense Management Platform Lays Off 35% of Its Workforce, 160 Employees Asked To Go.

Its studio group, including Pulse Films, produced Bamarush for HBO Max, Lewis Capaldi: How I'm Feeling Now for Netflix, American Gladiators for ESPN, Gangs of London for Sky, and Tell Me Lies for Hulu.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on May 16, 2023 10:24 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).