WeightWatchers filed Chapter 11 to shed $1.15B after obesity drugs hit its model

WW International, the company behind Weight Watchers, built one of the world's biggest weight-loss memberships — more than three million members worldwide. When popular prescription obesity drugs overturned its business model, the balance sheet could not carry the old economics: on 6 May 2025 the company voluntarily filed pre-packaged Chapter 11 cases in Delaware.

The plan, backed by holders of about 72 percent of its term loans and secured notes, eliminated $1.15 billion of debt, replacing it with $465 million of new senior secured debt due 2030; existing shareholders kept 9 percent of the new equity. The company aimed to emerge from court supervision in about 45 days, still publicly traded, with trade creditors paid in full.

Even in bankruptcy the pivot was visible: its telehealth arm, which now includes prescription weight-loss treatment, grew revenue 57 percent year over year in the first quarter of 2025. Weight Watchers survived by becoming, in part, the thing that had disrupted it.