Sources say the world’s biggest photo agency could fetch more than $1.5 billion, and potential buyers are thought to include private equity groups.
Recent times have been tough for Getty, which is fighting to keep low-priced online competitors from eroding its core business, the licensing of creative stock photos. Revenues from creative still images have been in decline, but Getty has remained profitable.
A deal to go private would remove Getty from the public scrutiny of the stock market, where its share price fell Friday to its lowest point since October 2002.Like most stock distributors, Getty owns only a fraction of the images in its collections. A larger portion of its images are re-licensed from individual contributors or third-party collections.