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Executives at Vice Media will lay off hundreds of its more than 900 employees over the next week, according to an internal memo sent to employees Thursday by CEO Bruce Dixon. The plan is to eliminate personnel from the department.
The layoffs are the latest in a series of severe layoffs the company has endured in recent years, returning the global digital behemoth to its former self. Over the past five years, Vice has cut jobs, racked up losses and filed for bankruptcy year after year, becoming the poster child for a devastated digital media industry.
When Vice emerged from bankruptcy last year, some officials hoped its new owners, a consortium led by private equity firm Fortress Investment Group, would reinvest and put the company back on the path to growth.
Instead, Fortress decided to make deep cuts in an attempt to stem the never-ending stream of deficits. The company plans to notify employees of its new business strategy within the next week.
Dixon also said in the memo, obtained by The New York Times, that the company would no longer list on Vice.com.
“As we navigate an ever-evolving business environment, we need to adapt and optimally adjust our strategies to improve our long-term competitive advantage,” he wrote. He also said Vice is in talks to sell its women’s publishing division, Refinery 29.
The layoffs come amid strong headwinds for the media industry as a whole. Over the past year, nearly every major news publisher has cut back on operations, including the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Vox Media, and the Los Angeles Times. Her web traffic to news outlets has plummeted as users spend more time on non-traditional media formats such as her TikTok and Instagram.
Vice was in dire straits before this planned round of layoffs. The company has been put up for sale periodically over the past two years as long-promised profits failed to materialize. In an increasingly volatile digital media business environment, executives bet on large, elaborate content deals with clients such as cigarette maker Philip Morris International and Greek media company Antenna.
When the contract with Antenna was terminated last year, Vice’s financial situation became dire and the company went into bankruptcy. But even after a court-supervised sale, the company struggled to achieve profitability and its bills continued to pile up.
Founded as a punk magazine in Montreal more than 20 years ago, Vice has ridden a rising wave of investment from media giants including A&E Networks, Disney and private equity firm TPG, reaching a valuation of $5.7 billion. But the company suffered a dramatic reversal of fortunes, struggling to live up to its eye-watering valuations as digital media markets plummeted and financial backers and employees were unable to profit from their investments. did.
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