The Other Getty Shoe Drops
By Jason Moriber • Feb 26th, 2008 • Category: Creative Destruction$2.4 Billion for Getty, nice work. The reports don’t list how much of that fee is going to pay down debt posted at Media Bistro note “the purchase price will be split about equally between equity and debt“. Wowzers! That’s $1.2 Billion in debt! Is it that Getty borrowed huge sums to gain market share? Is stock really not making any money, or not as much to be profitable? Now that the company will go private these questions won’t have to be answered, but either way that’s a lot of dough for stock, and more specifically for shareholders and the two co-founders. The handful of bankers behind this deal see the value in images and content as currency, as long as the costs are kept down. The new ownership will very unlikely mean more revenues for creatives. Typically it means the opposite, the new owners will look to squeeze as much money out of what they already have to turn a profit ASAP. Sure, they will invest in new markets, spend some money on client acquisition, but to us this signals the end of one era and the beginning of another. We expect new small creative businesses to sprout up, some to counter the behemoths and others to support them. And in some cases we expect folks to throw in the towel and get out of dodge.
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Jason Moriber is a veteran product/project/marketing manager, underground artist/musician, and online community developer, Jason expertly builds/produces/manages clients' projects, programs, and campaigns.
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