C21 Media, a U.K. publishing company, said it issued a letter of intent to acquire the assets of the National Association of Television Program Executives, which is currently seeking Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and has laid off several of its staffers.
Any acquisition would need approval from the bankruptcy court, C21 said.
C21 also said it planned to hold two conferences for content producers and distributors in 2023 in locations where NATPE had operated conferences: Miami, Florida, and Budapest, Hungary. Specific dates were not disclosed.
“These two new events will provide a vibrant Hispanic and U.S. programming market early in the year, and a progressive Central & Eastern European content market in June, with some haste,” David Jenkinson, editor-in-chief and managing director of C21, said in a release. “Alongside these new event initiatives, we have issued a letter of intent to the management of NATPE with a view to acquiring its assets, which will be aligned with our business should this happen. Any acquisition would require the approval of the U.S. bankruptcy court.”
In a Chapter 11 petition filed last week at the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Central District of California, NATPE said it has run at a $1.33 million deficit in the first six months of the fiscal year after losing $1.92 million last year.
The organization, whose money-generating events were disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, has laid off staff members, retaining as consultants three former executives, including CEO JP Bommel, several people familiar with the situation said. Bommel has not replied to emails or telephone messages from B+C.
Last month, NATPE held its NATPE Streaming Plus conference in Los Angeles. The group said it planned to move its annual January marketplace and conference from Miami, Florida, to a resort in Nassau, the Bahamas. There have been no announced changes to that plan. Joe Schramm, president of Schramm Marketing (an unsecured creditor listed in the petition), said he was retained to create programming for the conference and has not been told recently whether or not the Bahamas event was going ahead. Schramm, who also programmed the L.A. streaming conference among other NATPE events, told B+C he enjoyed working with the organization and said he hoped the Bahamas event will go ahead.
In its bankruptcy filing, NAPTE said it has total assets of $949,000 as of September 30, 2022, the end of the first half of its fiscal 2023. At the end of fiscal 2022, the organization had assets of $2.6 million.
The Fontainebleau Miami Beach and Eden Roc Miami Beach Resort, where the NATPE marketplace and conference used to take place, are on a list of creditors that have the 20 largest unsecured claims against NATPE. NATPE canceled the January 2022 conference just 10 days before it was scheduled to begin, citing health and safety concerns for attendees during a rise in COVID-19 infections. Bommel said at the time that “although this decision from a financial point of view will cost the organization a great deal of money, that was secondary to our primary concern, which is to put the welfare of our members first."
NATPE listed $1.2 million in liabilities for the six months ended September 30, including $148,187 in account payable, $20,000 in accrued payroll, $91,358 in accrued vacation and $773,133 in deferred revenue.
In the first six months of fiscal 2023, total gross revenues were $1.329 million, compared to $892,911 in all of fiscal 2022.
NATPE listed expenses of $1.561 million for fiscal 2023 to date, compared to $1.895 million in all of fiscal 2022.
Among the biggest creditors with unsecured claims broken out in the NAPTE bankruptcy petition were Lionsgate TV, owed $128,800; MGM Television, owned $80,500; NBCUniversal, owed $80,000; MODco Media, owed $72,000, and Sony Pictures, owed $51,250. ■
