The fate of Redbox and its parent company, Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment, has somehow become seemingly even more dire, with the DVD rental kiosk company missing a key payment deadline last week to NBCUniversal.
Last week, a Los Angeles Superior Court ordered "Redbox Automated Retail" to pay the entire $16.7 million it owes the conglomerate after it missed paying a $4 million installment. (Lowpass newsletter publisher Janko Roettgers got ahold of the complaint first and published it here.)
Also read: Chicken Soup Fails to Meet Terms for $175 Million Debt Forbearance Agreement, Purges Board
The missed payment comes after Chicken Soup failed to close on a $175 million debt forbearance agreement with its key creditors, and also, as Next TV first reported last week, after Chairman and CEO William J. Rouhana fired everyone on the board, including (according to Roettgers) his wife.
Chicken Soup assumed $325 million in debt when it purchased Redbox two years ago, aiming to transition a list of around 40 million regular kiosk users into AVOD streaming consumers.
In its belated April 29 10-K filing, Cos Cob, Connecticut-based Chicken Soup reported a net loss of $636.6 million for 2023 versus $111.2 million in 2022. The company said that without the ability to somehow generate additional financing, it would "likely require us to diminish or halt operations and seek protection under applicable bankruptcy laws.”
