截至发稿，Getty Images上涨24.32%、Shutterstock涨19.47%，在美股市场整体情绪不佳的情况下格外突出。① After the merger of Getty Images and Shutterstock, the new company will retain the name Getty Images and its trading code; ② Shutterstock shareholders will have three trading options; ③ Due to the continuous improvement of mobile phone cameras, the copyright image library business has faced pressure in recent years, and AI-generated images pose a new threat.
On January 8, Financial Associated Press reported (Editor: Shi Zhengcheng) that on Tuesday local time, the global visual content copyright giants Getty Images and Shutterstock officially announced the final merger agreement, causing the stocks of both listed companies to rise sharply.
(Source: Company official website)
As of the time of writing, Getty Images rose by 24.32% and Shutterstock rose by 19.47%, which is particularly notable given the overall poor sentiment in the US stock market.
According to the announcement, the merged new company will be named 'Getty Images Holdings', continuing to trade on the NYSE with the stock code 'GETY'. At the end of the transaction, the old shareholders of Getty Images will hold 54.7% of the new company's shares, while the remaining 45.3% will belong to the existing shareholders of Shutterstock.
After the transaction is completed, Mark Getty, the chairman of the Board of Directors of Getty Images, and CEO Craig Peters will continue to hold the same positions in the new company. Shutterstock will receive 4 seats on the 11-member Board of Directors.
For existing Shutterstock shareholders, this transaction provides three options: first, to be acquired at a price of about $28 per share at the end of the transaction; second, for each share of Shutterstock held, to exchange for 13.67 shares of Getty Images stock; third, for each share of Shutterstock to exchange for 9.17 shares of Getty Images common stock plus $9.50 in cash.
Based on the current stock price of Getty Images, which has risen to $3.20, the payment for options two and three is already close to $40 per share for Shutterstock, which is why the latter is also rising sharply.
Data rights assurance providers "huddle for warmth".
In recent years, with the quality of smartphone cameras continually improving, the value of copyright stock photos has been diluted. A greater threat comes from AI, which can generate images and videos from just a few words, and its impact on the entire content creation market is just beginning to emerge.
This is also why the stock prices of the two companies have consistently performed poorly. Since going public through a blank check merger in July 2022, Getty Images' Market Cap has shrunk to about 8% of its peak, and Shutterstock has also experienced a "dropped ankle" trend.
(Getty Images, Shutterstock daily charts, source: TradingView)
The two major licensed visual content service providers in the USA hope that through merging, they can create a deeper and wider library of static images, videos, music, and other media content. At the same time, stronger financial power will also support the new company in making larger investments in cutting-edge technologies and innovations such as search and AI.
The two listed companies expect that, in 2024, the new merger's annual revenue will reach 1.979-1.993 billion USD, with 46% being subscription revenue; the initial EBITDA can reach 0.569-0.574 billion USD. In the first three years after the transaction is completed, it is expected to save 0.15-0.2 billion USD in administrative costs and capital expenditures.
For the merger and acquisition market, this transaction will also test the antitrust standards of the "Trump 2.0 government." The Biden administration previously blocked mergers among major players in the retail and Aviation industries.
