The Greek broadcaster Antenna is exploring an acquisition of Vice Media, in accordance with three individuals acquainted with the matter who spoke on the situation of anonymity to debate non-public negotiations. The deal would consummate a longstanding enterprise relationship between the 2 firms.
Antenna shouldn’t be the one potential purchaser to have expressed curiosity in Vice, which rode a wave of optimism in digital media to an eye-popping $5.7 billion valuation in 2017 earlier than battling broader headwinds dealing with the sector. It’s not assured that Antenna will purchase Vice, nor that there will probably be a deal in any respect.
A spokesman for Antenna declined to remark.
A take care of Antenna would shut a chapter for Vice, which started its life within the Nineteen Nineties as an edgy journal based mostly in Montreal. Over the following twenty years, Vice and its co-founder Shane Smith persuaded blue-chip advertisers and buyers to affix Vice’s quest to turn into a global media firm with ambitions to tackle established gamers in publishing and leisure.
A kind of backers was Antenna Group, a media firm that in 2014 began a three way partnership with Vice in Greece. The corporate renewed and expanded its take care of Vice in 2019 and has teamed as much as begin a global information enterprise, Vice World Information.
Vice has centered on diversifying its income streams lately, increasing its Vice Studio enterprise; its advert company, Advantage; and its international information gathering division. These items have helped the corporate enhance its monetary outcomes and obtain profitability throughout some quarters final 12 months, an individual acquainted with the matter mentioned.
On Thursday, Vice Media introduced that it had garnered 33 Emmy nominations within the information and documentary class.
The Info reported earlier that Vice had employed advisers to discover a sale of its studio enterprise. CNBC reported that Vice Media was exploring a sale of its complete enterprise, and The Wall Avenue Journal reported that Group Black, a media firm centered on Black possession, was exploring a deal for Vice.
Vice, like many digital information firms, final 12 months explored a plan to go public by a take care of a particular function acquisition automobile, which had been seen as a better approach to take an organization public than a conventional preliminary public providing. However enthusiasm on Wall Avenue for SPACs waned, partially due to the poor efficiency of most of the firms that used them to go public, and Vice instead raised money from buyers.
Amongst these buyers have been Antenna, the non-public fairness agency TPG and Lupa Programs, the funding agency of James Murdoch, the son of the media mogul Rupert Murdoch.
