Rooster Soup for the Soul Leisure Inc. — the vendor of self-help books, movie and tv content material — filed for chapter after failing to outrun a heavy debt load.
The media corporate filed for Bankruptcy 11 coverage in Delaware overdue Friday, record belongings and liabilities of a minimum of $500 million every. The submitting lets in Rooster Soup to stay working whilst it really works on a plan to pay off collectors.
Rooster Soup struggled to stay alongside of its monetary responsibilities after purchasing DVD condo corporate Redbox in 2022, courtroom papers display. It took on about $360 million of debt in reference to the deal, a sum that might handiest be manageable if it might capitalize on film releases bouncing again from pandemic-era lows, Chairman William J. Rouhana Jr. stated in a sworn chapter courtroom observation.
Even though the film trade rebounded fairly, it wanted more money to shop for and distribute new content material, Rouhana stated. However the corporate’s lenders vetoed a brand new mortgage facility, ravenous the trade of budget, in keeping with Rouhana.
That left Rooster Soup “not able to pay for the entire films that have been introduced through their suppliers, and working effects failed to fulfill control’s expectancies, in particular in Redbox’s kiosk leases, leading to inadequate money flows and dealing capital to function the trade successfully,” Rouhana stated.
The corporate plans to make use of its chapter to unload some trade gadgets and restructure others, in keeping with courtroom papers. It covered up $20 million of recent debt to fund the Bankruptcy 11 procedure.
Rooster Soup nonetheless operates about 24,000 Redbox DVD condo kiosks throughout the United States. It additionally runs Crackle, a no-cost streaming carrier that depends on ads to generate income. The corporate’s content material library spans 28,000 movies and 40,000 episodes of tv, in accordance courtroom papers.
The Connecticut-based corporate was once based in 1993 and named for its feel-good books. Its enlargement into movie and tv programming and video streaming got here later, at the side of a line of top rate dog food. It become a publicly traded corporate in 2017.
A consultant for the corporate declined to remark past the courtroom filings.
The case is Rooster Soup for the Soul Leisure Inc., 24-11442, US Chapter Courtroom for the District of Delaware.Subscribe to the Fortune Subsequent to Lead publication to get weekly methods on easy methods to make it to the nook place of work. Join unfastened.
