Vivid Seats Inc. — financial distress indicators
Financial-health summary
Vivid Seats Inc.'s reported numbers place it in the 'Watch' financial-health band (distress score 36/100). The main indicators are liabilities exceed assets (negative equity), revenue collapse and deep share-price drawdown.
Stress by dimension
Share price — last 12 months
Indicators behind the score
Each red flag shows the evidence from the company’s own filings and the financial or legal principle behind it. Points add to the 0–100 score.
Total liabilities are 1.15× total assets.
Balance-sheet insolvency test: debts exceeding the fair value of assets is the statutory definition of 'insolvent' in 11 U.S.C. §101(32).
Revenue changed -30% year over year.
A >30% sales drop typically breaches leverage covenants and starves fixed-cost coverage.
Price is -80% from its 52-week high.
For financial firms a share-price run often precedes a deposit or funding run (confidence channel).
Revenue vs net income
Cash generation
Debt vs cash vs equity
✅ Mitigating factors
- No material mitigating factors found in the available data.
📰 Recent news scan
- Vivid Seats Celebrates National Fan Day® by Giving Back and Granting WishesYahoo Finance · 2026-10-08
- Vivid Seats and Los Angeles Rams Announce Multi-Year PartnershipYahoo Finance · 2026-09-09
- Vivid Seats (SEAT) Stock Sees Fair Value Lift After Q2 Prompts Analyst RevisionsYahoo Finance · 2026-08-26
- Vivid Seats (SEAT) Q2 2026 Earnings Call TranscriptYahoo Finance · 2026-08-11
- Vivid Seats Q2 Earnings Call HighlightsYahoo Finance · 2026-08-04
- Vivid Seats Inc. (SEAT) Reports Q2 Loss, Beats Revenue EstimatesYahoo Finance · 2026-08-04
⚖️ U.S. legal pathway — Title 11, U.S. Code
Which chapter would apply?
- Chapter 11 — reorganisation. Management usually stays in control as debtor-in-possession; the automatic stay (§362) halts collection; a plan must meet the best-interests test (§1129(a)(7)) and the absolute priority rule (§1129(b)) — creditors are paid before shareholders, who are frequently wiped out.
- Chapter 7 — liquidation. A trustee sells assets and distributes proceeds by statutory priority (§§507, 726).
- Subchapter V (“Chapter 5”) is a fast track for small-business debtors under a statutory debt cap, but SEC-reporting companies are excluded (§101(51D)) — so it rarely applies to listed companies.
What typically triggers a filing
- Payment default or covenant breach lenders will not waive; a debt maturity that cannot be refinanced.
- Auditor going-concern doubt (ASC 205-40 / PCAOB AS 2415) — often itself a default trigger in loan agreements.
- Creditors can force a case with an involuntary petition (§303) if debts are not paid as they come due.
- Delisting after sustained sub-$1 prices or equity deficits cuts off equity funding.
Transactions shortly before filing can be clawed back (preferences — 90 days, §547; fraudulent transfers — 2 years, §548).
Frequently asked questions
What do Vivid Seats Inc.'s financial-health indicators show?
As of 2026-10-08, Vivid Seats Inc.'s public financial data places it in the 'Watch' band with a distress score of 36/100, driven by liabilities exceed assets (negative equity), revenue collapse and deep share-price drawdown. This is a statistical screen of reported numbers — it does not mean the company is insolvent, has defaulted or will enter insolvency proceedings.
What is Vivid Seats Inc.'s financial distress score?
36/100 ('Watch').
What works in Vivid Seats Inc.'s favour?
No material mitigating factors were found in the available data.
How are shareholders treated if a company enters insolvency?
In a Chapter 11 reorganisation the absolute priority rule pays secured lenders, then unsecured creditors, before shareholders — so existing shares are usually cancelled or heavily diluted. In Chapter 7 the company is liquidated and shareholders rarely recover anything.
Other Telecom & Media companies with distress indicators
- FreeCast, Inc. (CAST)Very weak 100/100
- Direct Digital Holdings, Inc. (DRCT)Very weak 100/100
- K Wave Media Ltd. (KWM)Very weak 100/100
- Reading International, Inc. (RDIB)Very weak 100/100
- SurgePays, Inc. (SURG)Very weak 100/100
- Upexi, Inc. (UPXI)Very weak 100/100
Methodology
Score = capped sum of rule-based red flags across seven dimensions (liquidity, solvency, profitability, cash flow, sales trend, market signal, news). Ohlson O-score (1980) gives an accounting-based 1-year failure probability; Merton distance-to-default (Bharath & Shumway 2008) gives a market-implied probability. Financial institutions use a capital-based rule set. Recalculated every trading day from the latest filings, prices and news.