“A stronger company”?: DMS CEO Assures Everyone that Things Are Looking Up. Are they?

3 Comments

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. AdvancingDMS #AdvancingDMS.com

So definitely continuing to position this as a positive thing.

But headlines weren’t so glowing:

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.

Chat soon.

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Published by Eric "Czar" Troutman

The Czar of TCPAWorld Eric Troutman is one of the country’s prominent class action defense lawyers and is nationally recognized in Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) litigation and compliance. He has served as lead defense counsel in more than 70 national TCPA class actions and has litigated nearly a thousand individual TCPA cases in his role as national strategic litigation counsel for major banks and finance companies. He also helps industry participants build TCPA-compliant processes, policies, and systems. Eric has built a national litigation practice based upon deep experience, rigorous analysis and extraordinary responsiveness. Eric and his team feel equally at home litigating multibillion dollar telecommunications class actions in federal court as they do developing and executing national litigation strategies for institutions facing an onslaught of individual TCPA matters. They thrive in each of these roles – delivering consistently excellent results – while never losing sight of the client experience. While many firms now tout TCPA expertise, Eric has been there from the beginning. He built one of the country’s first TCPA-only defense teams and began serving as national TCPA counsel for his clients nearly a decade ago. This perspective allows him to swiftly develop the right litigation strategies for dealing with recurring problems, without wasting time on tactics that are bound to fail. Eric’s rich historical perspective and encyclopedic knowledge of the TCPA landscape also make him an invaluable resource to institutional compliance teams struggling to comply with the shifting regulatory landscape. No task is too small – or too big. Indeed, Eric and his team have helped build TCPA-compliant systems and processes for some of the largest and most complex corporate entities in the country. He commonly works with in-house compliance counsel to build and implement enterprise and business-line specific TCPA solutions, performs TCPA audits and drafts and reviews proposed TCPA policies and procedures. He and his team also have the technical expertise necessary to assist call centers seeking to develop TCPA-resistant call path architecture or to modify existing telephony and software integration to better insulate from potential TCPA exposure. Eric has built a reputation for thought leadership. An avid blogger and speaker, he has been at the forefront of the industry’s effort to push for clarity and a return to sanity for the TCPA for years. He was selected to advocate for the financial services industry on important TCPA issues before the Federal Communications Commission and co-authored the nation’s only comprehensive practice guide on TCPA defense. In his spare time, Eric leads defense teams representing banks and other financial services companies in consumer finance litigation matters. He has experience representing clients in UCC, TILA, RESPA FCRA, CCRA, CLRA, FDCPA, RFDCPA and FCCPA claims, as well as in fraud and bank operations issues.

3 Comments

  1. They’re transitioning ownership to a group of lenders who stepped in at the 11th hour to save their business. They had another buyer but they dropped out and forced DMS to take this deal. Do they really believe that after this 60 day period they’re going to keep the current leadership in their positions? Why would a buyer keep the people who drove this vehicle off a cliff in place?

    I think they’re getting cash in to pay off overhead for two months, maximize monthly revenue, cover lay offs and then who knows.

    Reply

  2. Things are looking up, alright. Marinucci just wants to get through the process so that he has maximized whatever payout he can get. After that, of course, the heck with the creditors, as he sits at his vacation paradise counting his gains. The buyers are the creditors who loaned money (or provided products or services which have not been paid for) to DMS, and they are trying to minimize their losses and any future liability exposure. Essentially, the buyers are also victims. The true victims in all of this are the consumers who were being drowned in the TCPA-violative calls being pumped out because of DMS. TCPA claimants are “unsecured creditors,” so they are at the end of the line and shut out when it comes to a payout from the bankruptcy process.

    Reply

  3. What else is he going to say?

    Meanwhile, employees at DMS owned companies are wondering how much longer they’ll have their jobs.

    Reply

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