Getty Images to File for Bankruptcy, Go Private in Restructuring Deal
Affiliates of Charles Koch's investment firm and the Getty family have pledged up to $533 million of new equity for the photo provider.
By Erik Hayden
Executive Editor, Business
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October 12, 2026 10:40am
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Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images
After abandoning a $3.7 billion merger with rival Shutterstock in late June over a regulatory roadblock, Getty Images now plans to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and go private in partnership with Charles Koch’s investment firm.
As the company plots an overhaul, it says that there will be no impact on operations, employees, partners, and vendors. It plans to undergo a prepackaged Chapter 11 process shortly and emerge from restructuring by the end of the year. Getty provides wire service photography and video to news outlets and businesses globally, including most red carpets and film festival premieres.
In June, Getty CEO Craig Peters said that its board of directors decided to scrap the deal to merge with Shutterstock after the top regulator in the U.K., the Competition and Markets Authority, required the sale of Shutterstock’s editorial business. Getty, which is focused on growing its core editorial business, viewed that as a non-starter.
During its latest earnings call in August, Peters said the company had spent “more than $100 million across professional fees and financing costs in pursuit of what we believe will be a strategic transaction” with Shutterstock that ultimately didn’t go through.
At the time, Getty had hired Guggenheim Securities to seek strategic financing alternatives in its standalone path. That resulted in the Koch team arriving to provide new financing (Koch Equity Development has been a backer of Getty since 2018, after making a $500 million preferred equity investment that year).
The company disclosed in an investor presentation on Monday that its iStock eCommerce business has seen “declining agency demand and disruption,” presumably due to the rapid adoption of AI tools and products that have made stock image creation easy.
Yet Getty projects growth in its core editorial image unit, forecasting that the division that’s powered by news images (i.e. real photos of actual events that have occurred), will grow from $369 million to $400 million by 2029.
Getty CFO Jennifer Ley