So absolutely massive interest in the story of the Digital Media Solutions bankruptcy last week. People are sort of losing their minds over it actually.

I’ve received dozens of emails on the subject and traffic on the site has been enormous. This has really touched a never.

As I told everyone last week I have no inside info here– I only know what is public record.

But DMS’s CEO and co-founder Joe Marniccui had this to say on LinkedIn last week:

Many of you have likely seen the news about the transition of ownership for DMS. I’d like to provide some context and clarity on what’s happening and why. Prior to our court-supervised sale process, we were a healthy company with an unhealthy balance sheet.

Now, with the actions we are taking, including the ownership transition and the new financing we’ve received, we are moving forward towards our goal of becoming a stronger company positioned to continue our growth trajectory.

Coming off our successful First Day hearing in court, it is business as usual here at DMS. For us, that means an unrelenting commitment to serving our customers and being the strongest business partner possible. I work with an incredible team that is committed to advancing DMS, and I’m proud of the extraordinary effort displayed by the team that has returned DMS to growth in recent months. The future of DMS is bright, and together, we will persevere. hashtag #AdvancingDMS #AdvancingDMS.com

So definitely continuing to position this as a positive thing.

But headlines weren’t so glowing:

• Clearwater company files for Ch. 11 bankruptcy with $300M in debt
• Bankrupt Clearwater marketing firm secures $122M in financing
• Digital Media Solutions Hits Ch. 11 With Plans To Sell

And S&P Global issued a downgrade on DMS debt as follows:

• Therefore, we lowered our issuer credit rating on the company to ‘D’ from ‘CCC’.
• At the same time, we lowered all of our issue-level ratings on DMS’ debt, including its $22 million tranche A term loan, $66 million tranche B term loan, $199 million senior secured initial term loan tranche, and $44.6 million senior secured revolving credit facility, to ‘D’.
• Subsequent to the downgrade, we withdrew all of our ratings on the company.

So…yeah.

I invited the DMS folks onto the podcast last week. They told me they were thinking about it. We shall see.

In the meantime if you have tips or tid bits you want to share reach out. I can keep things off the record, but I am interested in background here.