Vice is in post-confirmation liquidation under a plan administrator, with secured, administrative, and priority claims reconciled and paid, no distributions yet to general unsecured creditors, and no final decree application filed as of the latest quarterly report. The case began on May 15, 2023, when Vice Group Holding’s Chapter 11 petitionDkt. 1 commenced a SDNY restructuring for a global media business that had been carrying persistent negative cash flow, a highly leveraged balance sheet, and pressure from a delayed $34 million GMN Cayman payment and a $9.9 million Wipro judgment that froze JPMorgan accounts, as described in the Pometti first-day declarationDkt. 3.
The filing followed an unsuccessful prepetition sale effort and repeated forbearance agreements with prepetition term lenders. Vice entered Chapter 11 with about $474.6 million of first-lien term-loan debt, a $9.8 million JPMorgan overdraft facility, roughly $328.7 million of senior subordinated notes, and $20.9 million of Pulse notes; the restructuring strategy described at filing centered on preserving operations while using a Fortress stalking-horse bid as the floor for an asset sale process through Chapter 11, according to the Pometti first-day declarationDkt. 3.
By December 2023, the debtors’ path had shifted into a liquidation framework: Venus Liquidation Inc., formerly Vice Group Holding Inc., filed a nine-class Chapter 11 plan of liquidationDkt. 664. The latest posture is administrative wind-down rather than operating-company restructuring. The reports that the plan was confirmed on May 8, 2024 and became effective on May 14, 2024; since the effective date, the plan administrator has made $2.8 million of cash disbursements, paid administrative and priority claims in full, completed GUC reconciliation, and left $43.3 million of allowed general unsecured claims unpaid to date.
