On Friday, one of the largest databases of digital images announced that it is now a publicly traded company. Getty Images is listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker “GETY.”
Getty went public through a SPAC merger with CC Neuberger Principal Holdings II. Shares of the combined company, newly named Getty Images Holdings, became be available for investors at $9.35 per share on Monday.
The SPAC merger was first announced in December. When the deal was announced, Getty Images was valued at $4.8 billion. Getty was expected to receive $1.3 billion in committed capital from the deal, but received $875 million, according to GeekWire. This fresh capital will be used to pay down existing debt, according to a statement from Getty.
Getty first went public in 2008 but in 2012 the company was acquired by Carlyle Group, which took the company private.
“Our team develops technology and harnesses data to generate unique insights for our customers, and our archive dates back to the beginning of photography,” Craig Peters, CEO of Getty Images, said in a statement. “The decision to return to public markets enables us to continue defining and growing the creative economy in partnership with our stockholders. We are excited to partner with Chinh and CC Neuberger, in addition to the Getty family and Koch Equity Development affiliate, Koch Icon Investments, as we enter this new stage.”
Getty Images was founded in 1995 and is one of the largest repositories of photos that span the last 170 years. According to the company, it has over 465 million images in its collection of photographs that range from sporting events to global conflicts.
Back in May, before the merger deal with CC Neuberger was finalized, Getty announced that it was getting into the NFT game and would be selling NFTs of never-before-released photos in its collections.
