But six months after TPG made its investment, big trouble hit Vice in the form of a variety of #MeToo-related revelations. Vice cofounders Shane Smith and Suroosh Alvi told the New York Times, “From the top down, we have failed as a company to create a safe and inclusive workplace where everyone, especially women, can feel respected and thrive.” In March 2018, Smith, who was also Vice’s CEO, announced that he would leave that position to become the company’s executive chairman, paving the way for Dubuc, the former CEO of A+E Networks, to succeed him.

According to some familiar with Dubuc’s strategic thinking, she has viewed a Vice acquisition by CBS-Viacom as the company’s best near-term exit strategy and has asked for various analyses to be done about what the combination would look like and what Vice News would look like inside CBS News. Even though Vice lost Desus & Mero under Dubuc’s watch, she is said to have pointed to the show as an example of the value Vice could bring in an acquisition. A source described the argument to CBS-Viacom as, Vice “nurtured this team and then delivered them to you. This is exactly what we can do for you. We’ll be the lab that makes all this great new, young, diverse stuff for CBS-Viacom.”

According to a company insider, the valuation of Vice Media these days is around $1.5 billion. “Could someone get wild-eyed and be in need and bid up the price to $2 billion?” this person asked. “Maybe. But the notion that anyone is paying $5.7 billion is long gone.” If CBS-Viacom were to buy Vice, it would obviously love to spend as little as possible. But TPG could lose around 75% of its investment at the $1.5 billion valuation, depending on the terms of the convertible preferred stock it bought.

One possible solution is that TPG’s paper loss could be made up by taking back stock in the combined CBS-Viacom. As a sophisticated financial buyer, TPG is sure to be realistic about the current valuation of Vice and may see its best (only?) hope for a decent recovery if the company is part of a bigger, publicly traded enterprise. So it makes sense to count TPG in the camp supporting Dubuc’s efforts. But the biggest question remains whether Dubuc could pull off a sale in the first place. “At a valuation of $1.5 billion, or $1.2 billion, she wants to get out,” the insider told me. “Nobody at TPG and nobody at the Raine Group or Tom Freston has higher expectations. They aren’t delusional. They know their money [in Vice] is not coming back. It’s better just to get done with this fucking problem.” (TPG and the Raine Group declined to comment; Freston did not respond to a request for comment.)

One key to any possible deal, of course, is Bob Bakish. He is currently the CEO of Viacom and, according to the Wall Street Journal, is slated to become the CEO of the combined CBS-Viacom whenever that deal gets announced and then closed. Three years ago, when Vice was looking for new investors and Bakish had just been tapped by Shari Redstone to lead Viacom, he was adamant that Viacom would not be a Vice investor. “Unequivocally I have no interest in buying a stake in Vice, and we are not going to do it,” he told Variety then. Obviously that was a different time, when the valuation of Vice was far higher than it is currently. Would Bakish be interested in all of Vice at today’s valuation? Would he consider a deal now despite what he said before? No chance, a Viacom source tells me. In fact, he says, Bakish’s elevation to become the CEO of the merged CBS-Viacom was nothing less than “a death knell” for all talk of an acquisition of Vice.

But there’s another key to any possible deal: What does Shari Redstone think?

This article has been updated.