Lupa Systems, the investment holding company for James Murdoch, has agreed to invest an undisclosed sum in US-based, corporate-backed media group Vice Media at a $4bn valuation, the Financial Times has reported.
The company will take a “small” stake in Vice, according to people familiar with the matter who confirmed the valuation. Murdoch formed Lupa with the $2bn he got from the $71bn sale of media group 21st Century Fox to Walt Disney earlier this year.
Vice has expanded into a multimedia organisation that continues to publish a monthly magazine in addition to maintaining a variety of digital media properties and a television channel called Viceland.
The Lupa transaction comes after the company acquired female-focused online media company Refinery29 in a $400m cash-and-shares transaction earlier this month.
The deal is tangentially related to the $70m investment 21st Century Fox made in Vice in 2013, a deal that gave it a 5% stake and Fox chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch – James’ father – a seat on the company’s board of directors.
Disney is also a significant Vice investor, having invested $400m in 2015 at a valuation of more than $4bn. A&E Networks, a broadcaster co-owned by Disney, had invested $250m in Vice in 2014, weeks before growth equity firm TCV provided another $250m.
The last venture funding to be raised by Vice consisted of a $450m investment by private equity group TPG in in mid-2017 at a $5.7bn valuation.
Marketing firm WPP had joined boutique merchant bank Raine Group and private investor Tom Freston to supply an undisclosed amount for the company in 2011.
