According to the Financial Association on January 8th (Editor Shi Zhengcheng), on Tuesday local time, the two major global visual content copyright giants. $Getty Images (GETY.US)$ and $Shutterstock (SSTK.US)$ Officially announced the final merger agreement, leading to a significant rise in the stock prices of both listed companies.

As of the market close, Getty Images rose by 24.12% and Shutterstock increased by 14.81%, standing out especially in the overall poor sentiment of the U.S. 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.

Two well-known licensed visual content service providers hope that through the merger, they can form a deeper and broader library of still images, videos, music, and other media content. At the same time, stronger financial strength will support the new company in making greater 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.

Formergers and acquisitions.For the market, this Trade will also serve as a test of the anti-monopoly standards of the "Trump 2.0 government." The Biden administration previously blocked mergers of major participants in the retail and Aviation industries.

Editor/Somer