Fortress Investment Group is leading a group to acquire Vice Media out of bankruptcy, The New York Times reported early Thursday.
Fortress, Vice's largest secured creditor, along with other lenders including Soros Fund Management and Monroe Capital, made a binding bid of $225 million to take over the company at the time of its bankruptcy filing last month.
By late afternoon, Vice filed a notice of an amended bid that would value the company at $350 million.
A bankruptcy judge will have to approve the deal; the Times reported multiple other bids were made for Vice, with only Fortress' package "qualified."
Vice Media told Yahoo Finance it had no comment on the report at this time.
Vice, which filed for bankruptcy on May 15, was once looked at as a crown jewel in the fast-paced digital media sector as newspapers declined and investors looked for new types of content to lure viewers.
The company quickly saw notable investments from media powerhouses including A&E Networks, 21st Century Fox, and Disney (DIS), which invested a reported $400 million in 2015 at a valuation between $4 billion and $4.5 billion, but took a $157 million write-down on its original investment just one year later.
Ahead of its bankruptcy filing Vice had shut down its flagship Vice News Tonight program and cut 100 jobs in April. Previous reports from The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal revealed that stalling growth, coupled with a lack of ability to sell itself, contributed to the media giant's demise.
According to the Journal, the company was seeking a valuation of just $1.5 billion in December 2022 — a stark fall from the $5.7 billion valuation it received following a 2017 funding round. Vice was on track to miss its full-year revenue target by about $100 million, further complicating any potential sale, the Journal reported.
The bankruptcy filing revealed the company had assets and liabilities between $500 million and $1 billion.
The news comes amid continued upheaval in the media sector as companies from BuzzFeed (BZFD) to Insider grapple with high costs, layoffs, and declining valuations.
Buzzfeed shut down its news division as part of wider company layoffs in late April while Insider previously confirmed it would be laying off 10% of its workforce, citing "the same economic headwinds as others in our industry."
Late last year, CNN went through a round of layoffs as parent company Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) looked to slash $4 billion in costs over the coming years.
Alexandra Canal is a Senior Reporter at Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter @allie_canal, LinkedIn, and email her at alexandra.canal@yahoofinance.com
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