First you put it into bankruptcy, then you buy it.
That’s the strategy of Peter Thiel who secretly (at first) funded Hulk Hogan’s lawsuit against Gawker, which ultimately resulted in the company’s bankruptcy, and now is looking to buy what remains of the once popular blog for “a few million dollars.”
According to Reuters, Thiel has made an offer for Gawker “hoping to overcome legal hurdles and rival bidders for the online news site the billionaire helped shutter by funding litigation against it.”
Gawker, which has been shuttered for over a year, is conducting an auction of its remaining assets, including its domain names and nearly 200,000 archived articles. Most of its viable assets, including its sister pages Deadspin and Jezebel, were bought in 2016 for $135 million by media company Univision Holdings Inc.
While Thiel, Facebook’s first major investor, has not said why he wants Gawker, the potential acquisition would let him take down stories regarding his personal life that are still available on the website, and remove the scope for further litigation between him and Gawker according to Reuters.
As a reminder, Gawker in 2007 published a story about Thiel’s homosexuality, which resulted in a simmering vendetta between the two, and culminated with Thiel funded Hulk Hogan’s lawsuit against Gawker after the site published a sex tape featuring Hogan. The former wrestler won a $140 million judgment against the site and later settled for $31 million.
Meanwhile, Reuters also notes that Gawker’s bankruptcy plan administrators Will Holden, of consulting firm Dacarba LLC, and the website’s bankruptcy attorney Gregg Galardi, of law firm Ropes & Gray LLP, have tried to block Thiel’s bid, according to court papers.
Galardi in late November asked a U.S. bankruptcy court judge to deny Thiel’s request to bid, according to court papers. He also argued Thiel is “not a ‘proper’ purchaser” because he could end up as the target of litigation, according to court papers.