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☆ Vice Media Nears Deal for $400 Million Sale Out of Bankruptcy
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-05 | by ( Alexander Saeedy | Jodi Xu Klein | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Vice Media is nearing a deal for senior lenders including Fortress Investment Group and Soros Fund Management to acquire the troubled media company out of bankruptcy at a valuation of around $400 million, according to people familiar with the matter. Nearly every Vice stockholder—including backers such as private-equity firm TPG Group, Sixth Street Partners and media mogul James Murdoch—would be wiped out under the proposed reorganization, the people familiar with the matter said. Outstanding debts held by TPG and Sixth Street would also be impaired as part of the plan, the people said. The Murdoch family is a major shareholder in Journal parent News Corp .

☆ Vice Media Prepares to File for Bankruptcy
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-02 | by ( Jessica Toonkel | Alexander Saeedy | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Vice Media had recently announced it would be restructuring its news division. Photo: Mario Tama/Getty ImagesVice Media is preparing to file for bankruptcy as soon as within the next several days, people familiar with the matter said, a move that would mark a major fall from grace for a once-hot media startup that was valued at $5.7 billion at its peak. Vice, whose assets include Vice News, Vice TV, Refinery29 and Motherboard, has struggled for years to find growth. The company has been looking to sell itself, but a deal hasn’t materialized, The Wall Street Journal previously reported. Its chief executive, Nancy Dubuc, departed earlier this year, and last week the company announced it would be restructuring its news division, ending its Vice World News Tonight show and shutting down the Vice World News brand.

EY is dealing with the aftermath of an effort to split the firm’s auditing and consulting operations. Photo: MAJA SMIEJKOWSKA/REUTERSWhen Ernst & Young dropped its breakup plan, the firm’s executives said they remained committed to achieving the split. Since then, it has become clear that the effort is dead, at least for the next few years, according to internal webcasts and people familiar with the matter. Leaders of EY’s dominant U.S. and U.K. operations are focused on repairing the damage from the 18-month effort to split the firm’s auditing and consulting operations, known as Project Everest.

☆ Credit Suisse Investors Challenge Switzerland’s $17 Billion Bond Write-Down
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-21 | by ( Alexander Saeedy | Margot Patrick | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Credit Suisse Group AG bondholders have launched a legal challenge in Switzerland against regulators’ decision to write down $17 billion in securities as part of UBS Group AG’s rescue of the troubled bank last month. Bondholders holding about 4.5 billion Swiss francs ($5 billion) of Credit Suisse’s canceled debt want the decision to write down their bonds revoked or amended, according to an outline of their appeal made in a Swiss administrative court and reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. The bondholders are alleging the total write-down was disproportionately punitive to them and violated their property rights, according to the summary of the legal filing.

☆ EY Confronts Slowing Growth After Breakup Deal Fails
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-20 | by ( Jean Eaglesham | Alexander Saeedy | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Growth at EY’s U.S. operation has slowed every month since December. Photo: PETER NICHOLLS/REUTERSOn a staff call this week, a senior Ernst & Young executive delivered an exhortation to the troops: Bill clients “every hour we can get our hands on.”A failed breakup attempt cost the company $600 million. Employees are angry. But that might be the least of it: The outlook for EY’s business of charging for advice and accounting is getting weaker in the U.S. by the month.

☆ Vice Media Hires Interim Finance Chief as It Seeks a Buyer
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-14 | by ( Alexander Saeedy | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Vice Media has hired an executive from turnaround specialist AlixPartners as its interim finance chief as the struggling media company looks for a buyer, according to people familiar with the matter. AlixPartners Director Mark Del Priore fills a vacancy left by Bruce Dixon, who is now the media company’s co-chief executive, according to an internal memo seen by The Wall Street Journal. Mr. Del Priore will work with Vice Media management in “making decisions for company finances and overseeing strategic plans to improve the company’s financial health,” according to the memo.

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This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. Distribution and use of this material are governed by our Subscriber Agreement and by copyright law. For non-personal use or to order multiple copies, please contact Dow Jones Reprints at 1-800-843-0008 or visit www.djreprints.com. https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-in-talks-for-compromise-on-poor-country-debt-9b92b1a3

☆ SVB Collapse Complicates Banks’ Efforts to Unload More Than $25 Billion of Junk Debt
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-02 | by ( Alexander Saeedy | Laura Cooper | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Silicon Valley Bank had to sell bonds at a loss. Recent turmoil in the banking industry has made the already-difficult task of selling off tens of billions of risky buyout debt even harder for Wall Street firms. Bank of America Corp., Barclays PLC, Morgan Stanley and others together currently hold $25 billion to $30 billion of “hung debt” on their balance sheets, according to leveraged-finance analytics firm 9fin. The unsold debt is tied to leveraged buyouts that banks agreed to finance before worsening credit conditions last year sapped investor appetite for the paper.

EY global leader Carmine Di Sibio says the accounting firm is continuing to work toward a transaction. The unexpected revolt that has upended the planned breakup of accounting firm Ernst & Young is being driven by two longtime U.S. auditors who believe their part of the firm could end up weakened by a deal. John King and Frank Mahoney, senior U.S. EY executives, have emerged as key opponents to the firm’s plan for a worldwide split of its auditing and consulting arms, according to people familiar with the matter.

The Evergrande Mingdu residential complex in Jiangsu province, China, is one of the many properties owned by Evergrande Group. China Evergrande Group, the giant property developer that defaulted on its U.S. dollar bonds more than a year ago, has struck a crucial deal with a group of bondholders, bringing its prolonged debt negotiations close to the finish line. The Guangzhou-based developer became the highest profile victim of the Chinese government’s deleveraging campaign more than two years ago, which fueled a sharp slowdown in the property sector and ultimately led to dozens of dollar bond defaults. Its negotiation with bondholders—which investors said often appeared close to faltering—covered more than $19 billion of bonds.

☆ Silicon Valley Bank’s Former Parent Says FDIC Seized About $2 Billion of Its Cash
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-21 | by ( Alexander Saeedy | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Silicon Valley Bank’s former parent company can’t access about $2 billion that it had deposited at the failed bank, after regulators froze the company’s accounts and are exploring whether it should help shoulder costs associated with the bank’s failure. Lawyers for SVB Financial Group, the holding company that used to control the now-defunct bank, claimed during the company’s first hearing in bankruptcy court on Tuesday that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. has improperly blocked access to cash stored in accounts it holds at the successor to Silicon Valley Bank.

☆ Chinese Developer Evergrande Nears Landmark Restructuring Deal
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-17 | by ( Frances Yoon | Alexander Saeedy | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

China Evergrande is close to reaching a debt restructuring deal with foreign investors. China Evergrande Group , the giant property company that defaulted on its U.S. dollar bonds more than a year ago, is close to striking a debt restructuring deal with foreign bond investors, according to people familiar with the matter. The Guangzhou-based developer, the most indebted property company in the world, has agreed on the outlines of a deal that will give it breathing room by extending its debt maturities while allowing it to defer some coupon payments, the people said.

☆ SVB Financial Files for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Protection
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-17 | by ( Alexander Saeedy | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

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☆ EY Breakup Plan Stalled on Partners Split
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-16 | by ( Jean Eaglesham | Alexander Saeedy | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

EY plans to split its global auditing and consulting business, but a convoluted ownership structure raises issues. Ernst & Young ’s breakup plan is in jeopardy and the accounting firm’s leaders are trying to salvage the deal by placating restive U.S. partners without pushing its overseas executives too far, people familiar with the matter said. The Big Four accounting firm has suffered a series of delays in its plan to split its global auditing and consulting businesses. Now, top executives are considering several backup options, including selling off just the non-U. S. consulting operation, likely to a private-equity buyer, the people said.

Investors have purchased the debt of Silicon Valley Bank’s parent at distressed levels in hopes of profiting in a possible sale of assets. Creditors of Silicon Valley Bank’s parent company have formed a group in anticipation of a potential bankruptcy filing, through which they hope to profit from a sale of the collapsed firm’s private-wealth and other units, according to people familiar with the matter. The investor group, which is being advised by PJT Partners Inc., includes Centerbridge Partners LP, Davidson Kempner Capital Management LP and Pacific Investment Management Co., or Pimco, the people said. Most members bought parent SVB Financial Group ’s bonds coming into the weekend as they traded down to around 30 cents on the dollar, the people said. The group now holds a sizable chunk of SVB Financial’s $3.4 billion face value of bonds.

Richelieu Dennis, left, and Bonin Bough are two of the co-founders of Group Black, which has been exploring an acquisition of Vice Media for several months. Group Black, a company that aims to invest in and grow Black-owned media firms, has submitted a bid to acquire beleaguered Vice Media for around $400 million, according to people familiar with the situation. Vice has received other bids for the entire business as well as pieces of its business, people familiar with the matter said. The company hopes to wrap up the bidding process in the next few days, the people said.

☆ Elon Musk Says Twitter Could Be ‘Cash-Flow Positive’ Within Months
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-08 | by ( Alexa Corse | Alexander Saeedy | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Elon Musk said Twitter Inc. has a shot at being cash-flow positive next quarter, and he is optimistic about the company’s future after what he called a difficult past few months. “I definitely don’t want to count chickens before they hatch,” he added Tuesday about his latest expectations for the company’s financial situation.

☆ FTX Says $8.9 Billion in Customer Funds Are Missing
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-02 | by ( Alexander Saeedy | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

FTX says it has identified a deficit of $8.9 billion in customer funds that it can’t account for, the first time the bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange has pinned down how much money has gone missing. In a public presentation released on Thursday, FTX said it had identified around $2.7 billion of customer assets, compared with $11.6 billion of balances outstanding on customer accounts. The estimated value of FTX’s assets and liabilities are based on crypto prices on the day of the company’s bankruptcy filing in early November.

☆ Evergrande’s Foreign Bondholders Push Back as Hearing Looms
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-27 | by ( Frances Yoon | Alexander Saeedy | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

The developer was one of the first victims of China’s property slump. Property developer China Evergrande Group is struggling to reach a deal with foreign bondholders, raising the possibility that a court will tell the company to wind down. Evergrande, once China’s largest property developer by sales, sold more than $20 billion of dollar bonds during a debt-fueled spending spree. The company defaulted on its foreign debt in late 2021, and has since been embroiled in a difficult negotiation with international bondholders. The latest bone of contention: whether Evergrande should be allowed to use its assets outside of China to pay debt incurred within the mainland.

Vice Media has struggled for years to show rapid growth and live up to an early valuation of $5.7 billion. Vice Media has secured more than $30 million in debt financing from Fortress Investment Group, according to a person familiar with the matter, as the new-media company faces a financial crunch. Vice, which is trying to sell itself, owes millions of dollars to vendors and advisers, some of whom haven’t been paid for more than six months, according to people familiar with the matter. Some vendors have resorted to collections agencies to retrieve payments, some of the people said.

☆ Elon Musk Explores Raising Up to $3 Billion to Help Pay Off Twitter Debt
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-26 | by ( Berber Jin | Alexander Saeedy | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Elon Musk’s team has held talks with investors about raising up to $3 billion to repay some of the $13 billion in debt tacked onto Twitter Inc. as part of his buyout of the company, people familiar with the matter said. In December, Mr. Musk’s representatives discussed selling up to $3 billion in new Twitter shares, people familiar with the matter said.

☆ Elon Musk Explores Raising Up to $3 Billion to Pay Off Twitter Debt
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-25 | by ( Berber Jin | Alexander Saeedy | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Mr. Musk’s representatives have discussed selling up to $3 billion in new Twitter shares, people familiar with the matter said. Elon Musk‘s team has been exploring using as much as $3 billion in potential new fundraising to help repay some of the $13 billion in debt tacked onto Twitter Inc. for his buyout of the company, people familiar with the matter said. In December, Mr. Musk’s representatives discussed selling up to $3 billion in new Twitter shares, people familiar with the matter said.

☆ New FTX Chief Says Crypto Exchange Could Restart
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-19 | by ( Alexander Saeedy | Alexander Osipovich | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

FTX’s new chief executive, John J. Ray III, said he’s looking into the possibility of reviving the bankrupt crypto exchange as he works to return money to the failed company’s customers and creditors. In his first interview since taking over FTX in November, Mr. Ray said that he has set up a task force to explore restarting FTX.com, the company’s main international exchange. Although top FTX executives have been accused of criminal misconduct, some customers have praised its technology and suggested that there would be value in rebooting the platform, he said.

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