Troika Media Group, an advertising professional services company, filed for bankruptcy Thursday, after defaulting on debt it raised to finance the acquisition of a marketing agency last year, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. New York-based Troika filed for chapter 11 with the Bankruptcy Court of the Southern District of New York with a deal to sell all of its assets to existing lender Blue Torch Finance. The creditor would swap the debt it lent to the company for assets. Troika can entertain higher and better offers and the deal is subject to court approval. “We expect that the process will be relatively short and that the company will have adequate liquidity” to operate normally throughout the process, interim CEO Grant Lyon said in an announcement Thursday. Blue Torch is also providing the company with a $11 million debtor-in-possession loan which will be used to finance the company’s bankruptcy and pay critical vendors, according to a court filing by Lyon. In June 2022, Troika defaulted on the debt it took on to acquire New York-based marketing agency Converge Direct last year for $125 million, according to Lyon. Soon after the acquisition, Troika appointed Sadiq Toama, one of the owners of Converge, as its CEO. Toama soon shut down other money-losing businesses and made Converge the company’s core business, he added. Blue Torch provided a $75 million loan to finance the deal.
