Getty Images filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in Delaware on Wednesday. The Getty family and Koch Equity Development will put in up to $533M and own the whole company, which expects to finish the process by year-end. The filing follows a failed Shutterstock merger and growing competition from AI images.
Getty Images filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in Delaware on Wednesday, CNBC reported. The move is part of a plan to cut its debt and take the photo agency private.
Affiliates of the Getty family and Koch Equity Development will put in up to $533M in new equity, Getty said. They will own the whole company once the process ends, which Getty expects by the end of the year.
It will not be Getty’s first spell as a private company. The Getty family joined Carlyle in a $3.3B buyout in 2012, and the agency only returned to the stock market through a SPAC merger in 2022.
People who own Getty’s public shares are set to get nothing, the company warned. The stock now trades for pennies, and could be dropped from the New York Stock Exchange.
Under the plan, first announced on 12 October, bond holders agreed to write off $270M of debt. Other lenders agreed to cut interest rates and give Getty more time to pay. Koch will also provide up to $143M in funding to see it through.
“Today’s filing is a procedural step to implement the financial restructuring previously announced,” said Craig Peters, Getty’s chief executive.
Getty said its business will run as normal, and photographers, customers and staff will not be affected. Court papers list both its assets and its liabilities at between $1B and $10B.
It has been a hard year. In July, Getty scrapped its Shutterstock merger, a $3.7B deal, after a UK regulator told Shutterstock to sell its news photo business. Sales fell 2% to $229.1M in the second quarter, as AI image tools add to the pressure.
Getty has tried to make AI pay instead. In June, its shares jumped after it signed with OpenAI to show licensed Getty photos in ChatGPT. It has also sued Stability AI, saying millions of its photos were used to train its image model.
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