Footage.net Feature: Getty Images and Shutterstock Announce Merger
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If you haven’t heard yet, let me be the first to share the news: Getty Images and Shutterstock, two of the biggest names in the archival footage and imagery game, are coming together to form one new conglomerate. Should this merger go through, the new company, to be named Getty Images Holdings, Inc., will immediately become a leader in the archival asset space, with an estimated market cap of $3.7 billion and a combined archive of around 1 billion assets.
The move, which is being structured as a “merger of equals” transaction, seems to be set against the backdrop of increased competition from generative AI, and aims to offer “a content library with greater depth and breadth for the benefit of customers.” Whether the two platforms, or their subsidiaries, which include entities such as Rex Features, Pond5, GIPHY, iStock, Image Bank, and Unsplash, will continue to operate as separate platforms under the new corporate structure remains to be seen, and change will likely come relatively slowly, and only after moving past several regulatory hurdles in the United States and the United Kingdom.
The new corporate entity will be led by Craig Peters, the current CEO of Getty Images, while the CEO of Shutterstock, Paul Hennessy, will join a new eleven-member Board of Directors, which will, in turn, be chaired by Mark Getty, the founder and current Chairman of Getty Images. In addition to Hennessy, the Board will be made up of six Getty Images appointees and four appointees from Shutterstock. This balance approximately mirrors the ownership stakes reserved for each company’s shareholders; on the closure of the deal, ~54.7% of the combined shares will be owned by current Getty Images shareholders, with the remaining ~45.3% held by current Shutterstock shareholders.
Shareholders in Shutterstock will have the ability to choose between a buyout, share conversion, or a mixed consideration package as part of the deal, and the combined organization will trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the “GETY” ticker symbol.
On the topic of the merger, Peters had this to say, “With the rapid rise in demand for compelling visual content across industries, there has never been a better time for our two businesses to come together. By combining our complementary strengths, we can better address customer opportunities while delivering exceptional value to our partners, contributors, and stockholders.”
How you feel about this monumental deal will, inevitably, be a matter of personal position and opinion, but regardless of how you look at it, this merger is a significant paradigm shift for the archival industry and one whose impact will be hard to predict, with some arguing already that this will create an opportunity for smaller archives to compete. On the flip side, some content providers have voiced concerns about the long-term impacts of this merger, both from an income pipeline perspective and an asset access one. But no matter which side you come down on, one certainty is that this merger will be one to watch.
