GETTY IMAGES HOLDINGS INC

$Getty Images(GETY.US) is heading into Chapter 11 and will go private, with the Getty family and Koch set to own 100% of the company, per WSJ and a company release

The Getty family and Koch Equity Development committed up to $533 million in new equity. Koch is also providing up to $143 million in financing to fund the restructuring

Holders of 83.5% of the unsecured bonds agreed to retire $270 million of notes, and about 89% of secured lenders agreed to cut interest costs and push out maturities

The prepackaged filing covers certain U.S. entities and is expected to wrap by year end. The company says operations, contributors, and customers won't be affected and vendors get paid in full

Existing shareholders are the ones left out. The company warns common stockholders are not expected to receive or retain anything under the plan

This follows $Getty Images(GETY.US) walking away from its planned $3.7 billion merger with $Shutterstock(SSTK.US), with the stock already pushed off the NYSE to the OTC market

One of the biggest photo archives in the world still could not save the equity from its debt load and legal liabilities while generative AI pressures the stock imagery business. Owning the content was not enough when the balance sheet could not survive the transition

Source: StockMarket.News