MicrostockGroup
Microstock Photography Forum - General => General Stock Discussion => Topic started by: trabuco on March 19, 2019, 05:13
-
Searching for advices to manage a portfolio on Getty (thinking to come back or not, every day in microstock is a party) have found this:
https://www.breakingviews.com/considered-view/getty-family-takes-negatives-off-carlyle/ (https://www.breakingviews.com/considered-view/getty-family-takes-negatives-off-carlyle/)
Have you read it? Could you give me your impressions? I really don't know how american companies deal with this issues, but sounds really bad.
-
Provided I don't think the company is likely to go bankrupt the financial position of the company is not relevant to my decision about uploading. In the case of Getty I think even if their debt mounts I think it has a reputation and ongoing business that makes it unlikely. Bigger companies have been known to crash spectacularly in the past so you can never be sure.
-
Well I don't think the company is going to disappear. In case of crash another one would buy it and keep it working. Anyway, for the content of the article, this year we are going to know it.
-
OFFTOPIC
A turnaround is not out of the picture yet – but it requires a strong telephoto lens to see it.
My English are still in development but this looks like a poor simile to close an article just because dealing with a Photo Company.
-
OFFTOPIC
A turnaround is not out of the picture yet – but it requires a strong telephoto lens to see it.
My English are still in development but this looks like a poor simile to close an article just because dealing with a Photo Company.
Perfectly normal journalese, and quite a clever example of such, IMO.
BTW, that's not a simile. (Being pedantic, but trying to help with your English development)
A simile has to use the format 'as ... as...'
As blind as a bat
As innocent as a lamb
As hot as hell
etc
-
Mark Getty: Mark was born in 1960, and is the founder of Getty Images, (along with Jonathan Klein) a global photo agency. Net worth £325 million GBP (2018)
I doubt that this prize project is likely to go under, without some personal investment in keeping it around. This is an inspired effort to buy the assets of closed newspapers and agencies, digitize them and save for the future. Of course, yes it's a business as well.
Getty Images, Inc. is a visual media company, with headquarters in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is a supplier of stock images, editorial photography, video and music for business and consumers with an archive of over 200 million assets. It targets three markets—creative professionals, the media, and corporate.
iStock is not the major footing for this agency and I often think that Getty bought IS for the archives, and entry into more well known stock for a larger audience. I doubt that they primarily bought IS for the Microstock stock site. However, by owning IS, Getty now has a well known and established marketing site.
Think outside Microstock and beyond.
-
It's popular to make successful companies look like they are in debt, because it can then be used as a tax writeoff.
If indeed this is true (haven't read the article or investigated it) - then I'd say there is some creative accounting going on. Legitimate - but creative - to make it look like a liability when in fact it is profitable.
-
It's popular to make successful companies look like they are in debt, because it can then be used as a tax writeoff.
If indeed this is true (haven't read the article or investigated it) - then I'd say there is some creative accounting going on. Legitimate - but creative - to make it look like a liability when in fact it is profitable.
2018 article, Getty Images got gutted by the partner deals, the debt ratio was way out of line, to the point where they owed more for interest, than the company earned. It's not all creative accounting. I'd still think the agency has solid backing from involved parties, and there's a good potential for the future. Many exclusive and historic images that they own the rights to.
-
It's popular to make successful companies look like they are in debt, because it can then be used as a tax writeoff.
If indeed this is true (haven't read the article or investigated it) - then I'd say there is some creative accounting going on. Legitimate - but creative - to make it look like a liability when in fact it is profitable.
The debt is real and is the legacy of the mangling Getty suffered at the hands of two private equity companies, Hellman & Friedman and then Carlyle. Both of those companies couldn't sell Getty at a profit so they paid themselves via adding debt - dividend recapitalization (https://investmentbank.com/dividend-recapitalization/).
The reason both of these private equity firms were very bad news for contributors is that it reduced/eliminated most of the money for growing the business or paying suppliers a fair royalty. Private equity firms don't care about the long term health of a business, only getting their return and getting out.
You can read more about both of these acquisitions in old posts here. It takes big companies a long time to fail unless they're hemorrhaging cash; the problem is, with lots of debt to service, you have very little flexibility.
In February they sought to raise $400m new debt to pay off some old and Moody's rated it lower than Getty's overall rating because of the risks:
https://www.moodys.com/research/Moodys-assigns-Caa2-rating-to-Getty-Images-new-senior-unsecured--PR_394938 (https://www.moodys.com/research/Moodys-assigns-Caa2-rating-to-Getty-Images-new-senior-unsecured--PR_394938)
"...reflects its high pro forma leverage ...following the planned debt refinancing and recapitalization, low-single digit free cash flow to adjusted debt ratio and still early transformation from legacy products to high volume enterprise subscription and high margin Royalty-Free products. It also considers clients' changing demand for stock imagery, which has shifted to non-exclusive lower-priced products and fostered aggressive competition. There is financial risk associated with the proposed issuance of a rapidly accreting payment-in-kind (PIK) preferred equity instrument that expands to roughly $700 million principal balance three years after closing from $500 million initially, which we believe could lead to volatile leverage metrics if refinanced with debt in the future."
The above followed a rating for $1.55 billion new debt in January.
https://www.moodys.com/research/Moodys-upgrades-Getty-Images-CFR-to-B3-from-Caa1-assigns--PR_391551 (https://www.moodys.com/research/Moodys-upgrades-Getty-Images-CFR-to-B3-from-Caa1-assigns--PR_391551)
There is apparently some optimism - they've removed Getty from a credit watch status - among some of the finance folks based on the recent debt juggling
https://www.ademcetinkaya.com/2019/02/getty-images-inc-upgraded-to-b-from-ccc.html (https://www.ademcetinkaya.com/2019/02/getty-images-inc-upgraded-to-b-from-ccc.html)
You'll note in that last article a comment that risks include "...inability to realize expected cost savings, greater price-based competition, or insufficient demand for its subscription offerings" I don't know if those subscriptions are something other than iStock - Thinkstock is still supposedly retiring in "mid 2019" according to its web site.
-
Getty is a very large company and has amazing archive stock collection and also exclusive contracts with major sporting
and red carpet events. That will be the saving vest for this company.
Now in the creative section of the business (images,videos,illustrations,......) they lost the battle long ago and I don't think they will recover. The best contributors specially of Getty Creative are gone and in the micro side of the business Istock cannot compete anymore in quality and quantity for similar reasons. Many top exclusives don't supply anymore and without those the archive is just more limited than the competition.
They forgot to treat well their contributors and it has bitten them hard to a turning point that they are not able to redirect. Maybe a lesson for all other agencies. Mistreat your suppliers and the road to perdition is 1 mile ahead.
-
The article sidebar notes are a bit interesting.
"Hellman & Friedman bought most of Getty Images in a 2008 deal that valued the target’s equity at some $2 billion, with around $400 million in debt."
"The Getty family is paying $250 million for Carlyle’s 51 percent stake, according to the Financial Times, which first reported the deal. Getty Images has more than $2.3 billion of debt." "The deal puts the enterprise value of the company at slightly less than $3 billion..."
So I don't know if the reported "equity" and "value" are the same net numbers. If yes, then the size of the company grew from $2B to almost $3B. If no, then we are dealing with apples and oranges comparisons but implying a bigger value company.
The real significance to me (not being in the banking or investing business) seems to be the increase of debt load from $400M to $2.3B. The helpful private equity "investors" have stripped a lot of value out of the company.
Indeed the second paragraph of the article says "Tuesday’s deal values Getty Images’ equity at just a quarter of its worth when Hellman & Friedman bought it in 2008. One major reason for the decline is that before selling it to Carlyle four years later, the buyer saddled it with additional debt, some of which was used to finance dividends." So the actual equity value of the company has nearly crashed via the investors, who seemingly grabbed the money and ran.
So is this a severe detriment to Getty Images? Is this just a bankers ruse to move around money to the benefit of the top players and game playing organizations? Are the gamers * just enough blood out of GI to not kill it - but to use the blood for some other corporate games?
I think these financial moves are all a big shell game among the GI people who are bankers (not photographers) at heart. I doubt they want to kill, or let die, their cash cow GI. But the situation certainly puts the squeeze on finances and certainly on payments and percentages to us photo suppliers as they milk this cow.
Does someone with better accounting knowledge and Getty history have a better thought?
-
Getty is a very large company and has amazing archive stock collection and also exclusive contracts with major sporting
and red carpet events. That will be the saving vest for this company.
Now in the creative section of the business (images,videos,illustrations,......) they lost the battle long ago and I don't think they will recover. The best contributors specially of Getty Creative are gone and in the micro side of the business Istock cannot compete anymore in quality and quantity for similar reasons. Many top exclusives don't supply anymore and without those the archive is just more limited than the competition.
They forgot to treat well their contributors and it has bitten them hard to a turning point that they are not able to redirect. Maybe a lesson for all other agencies. Mistreat your suppliers and the road to perdition is 1 mile ahead.
They may have some exclusive deals, but mostly they have access everywhere, without questions, and Getty has hired shooters working those events. That's why they removed our Editorial content from IS, to reduce competition. I'd like to see a couple of examples of major sporting events that they have exclusive? If the contracts are the same as last one I saw, Getty pays the photographers and owns all rights to the work. Nice investment in agency owned content.
Before Getty bought back the controlling interest and during the rape of the company by investment firms, there was also a large dividend paid out to those investors. More bleeding...
-
BTW, that's not a simile. (Being pedantic, but trying to help with your English development)
A simile has to use the format 'as ... as...'
As blind as a bat
As innocent as a lamb
As hot as hell
etc
Thank you! I thought it was a cliche.
Also got it now on similars!
:)
-
This is bizarre:
One major reason for the decline is that before selling it to Carlyle four years later, the buyer saddled it with additional debt, some of which was used to finance dividends.
-
This is bizarre:
One major reason for the decline is that before selling it to Carlyle four years later, the buyer saddled it with additional debt, some of which was used to finance dividends.
But by no means unusual when value is created for investors while trashing businesses.
-
Someone is exploiting us to make a fortune: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uf5dVOoR4KE (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uf5dVOoR4KE)
-
i hope they go bankrupt...lot of possibility of sales out there without those bigh sucker company...the problem is that if they go bankrupt imagine 00 millions file and more coming toward ss and fotolia...o better they stay there selling for penny to contributor...the problem is already there lot of exclusive seeing there rperd falling down and thinking to leave their exclusive status.
-
i hope they go bankrupt...lot of possibility of sales out there without those bigh sucker company...the problem is that if they go bankrupt imagine 00 millions file and more coming toward ss and fotolia...o better they stay there selling for penny to contributor...the problem is already there lot of exclusive seeing there rperd falling down and thinking to leave their exclusive status.
They wont go bankrupt but they might sellout to someone like Visual China Group... like Corbis did.
-
i hope they go bankrupt...lot of possibility of sales out there without those bigh sucker company...the problem is that if they go bankrupt imagine 00 millions file and more coming toward ss and fotolia...o better they stay there selling for penny to contributor...the problem is already there lot of exclusive seeing there rperd falling down and thinking to leave their exclusive status.
They wont go bankrupt but they might sellout to someone like Visual China Group... like Corbis did.
iStock has already been sold as part of a deal with Visual China Group. All istock uploads and older files are mirrored to veer and vcg.
-
i hope they crash and burn sooner rather than later
-
i hope they go bankrupt...lot of possibility of sales out there without those bigh sucker company...the problem is that if they go bankrupt imagine 00 millions file and more coming toward ss and fotolia...o better they stay there selling for penny to contributor...the problem is already there lot of exclusive seeing there rperd falling down and thinking to leave their exclusive status.
They wont go bankrupt but they might sellout to someone like Visual China Group... like Corbis did.
iStock has already been sold as part of a deal with Visual China Group. All istock uploads and older files are mirrored to veer and vcg.
Have you got a link for that?
The official word was that "VCG is a trusted business partner for Getty Images in China" meaning to get Getty images into the Chinese market.
Which of course led to low prices, mass copying and even them giving images away for free, though after many complaints that was said to have been stopped.
Whatever, it's not the same as being "sold".
-
i hope they go bankrupt...lot of possibility of sales out there without those bigh sucker company...the problem is that if they go bankrupt imagine 00 millions file and more coming toward ss and fotolia...o better they stay there selling for penny to contributor...the problem is already there lot of exclusive seeing there rperd falling down and thinking to leave their exclusive status.
They wont go bankrupt but they might sellout to someone like Visual China Group... like Corbis did.
iStock has already been sold as part of a deal with Visual China Group. All istock uploads and older files are mirrored to veer and vcg.
Have you got a link for that?
The official word was that "VCG is a trusted business partner for Getty Images in China" meaning to get Getty images into the Chinese market.
Which of course led to low prices, mass copying and even them giving images away for free, though after many complaints that was said to have been stopped.
Whatever, it's not the same as being "sold".
It s kept very quiet, it is not in the news as the corbis sale, but every sign shows that the same has happened.
http://aspp.com/10253-2/ (http://aspp.com/10253-2/) iStock uploads are making it quicker onto Veer than own page. Veer was part of the Corbis sale.
-
i hope they go bankrupt...lot of possibility of sales out there without those bigh sucker company...the problem is that if they go bankrupt imagine 00 millions file and more coming toward ss and fotolia...o better they stay there selling for penny to contributor...the problem is already there lot of exclusive seeing there rperd falling down and thinking to leave their exclusive status.
They wont go bankrupt but they might sellout to someone like Visual China Group... like Corbis did.
iStock has already been sold as part of a deal with Visual China Group. All istock uploads and older files are mirrored to veer and vcg.
Have you got a link for that?
The official word was that "VCG is a trusted business partner for Getty Images in China" meaning to get Getty images into the Chinese market.
Which of course led to low prices, mass copying and even them giving images away for free, though after many complaints that was said to have been stopped.
Whatever, it's not the same as being "sold".
It s kept very quiet, it is not in the news as the corbis sale, but every sign shows that the same has happened.
[url]http://aspp.com/10253-2/[/url] ([url]http://aspp.com/10253-2/[/url]) iStock uploads are making it quicker onto Veer than own page. Veer was part of the Corbis sale.
Its a partnership murky and dodgy as it maybe VCG do not own Istock.
-
Just cancelled by Getty account. I didn’t know about the istock and Chinese, and I don’t trust the Chinese to enforce copyrights nor having any understanding of what their copyright laws are.
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
-
i hope they go bankrupt...lot of possibility of sales out there without those bigh sucker company...the problem is that if they go bankrupt imagine 00 millions file and more coming toward ss and fotolia...o better they stay there selling for penny to contributor...the problem is already there lot of exclusive seeing there rperd falling down and thinking to leave their exclusive status.
They wont go bankrupt but they might sellout to someone like Visual China Group... like Corbis did.
iStock has already been sold as part of a deal with Visual China Group. All istock uploads and older files are mirrored to veer and vcg.
Have you got a link for that?
The official word was that "VCG is a trusted business partner for Getty Images in China" meaning to get Getty images into the Chinese market.
Which of course led to low prices, mass copying and even them giving images away for free, though after many complaints that was said to have been stopped.
Whatever, it's not the same as being "sold".
It s kept very quiet, it is not in the news as the corbis sale, but every sign shows that the same has happened.
[url]http://aspp.com/10253-2/[/url] ([url]http://aspp.com/10253-2/[/url]) iStock uploads are making it quicker onto Veer than own page. Veer was part of the Corbis sale.
Its a partnership murky and dodgy as it maybe VCG do not own Istock.
They don't own Corbis either, they were bought by Unity Glory International Ltd, an affiliate of VCG and owned by some of their directors. According to Bloomburg Unity Glory International Ltd. operates as a subsidiary of Huaxia Vision (Tianjin) Information Technology Co., Ltd. You did say murky.
-
They would go into Chapter 11 and re-organize their debt - likely trade it for equity again. They still are the dominant market player and have a viable business without the debt load. Lenders don't want to kill the cow: They will find a creative way to keep it supplying them with milk. I worked for a company in a similar situation. Vulture funds usually find a way to keep the tap flowing -- albeit often at the cost of employees and suppliers.
-
If they have cash enough.
-
They would go into Chapter 11 and re-organize their debt - likely trade it for equity again. They still are the dominant market player and have a viable business without the debt load. Lenders don't want to kill the cow: They will find a creative way to keep it supplying them with milk. I worked for a company in a similar situation. Vulture funds usually find a way to keep the tap flowing -- albeit often at the cost of employees and suppliers.
If they sell milk for 6 cents, less photographers will decide to feed the cow. If photographers don't feed the cow it won't give any milk to produce the cheese. Lenders will not get the cheese and Getty will end up with a dead cow in the barns.
https://twitter.com/jonathandklein/status/690559911252471808?lang=en
-
I deleted my port and quit with my first sale, 0.05 USD. My pictures are not master pieces, but are not for free.
I was thinking about coming back and how to do it (small port, similar pictures with same keywording...) but I think Getty is not for me.
-
They would go into Chapter 11 and re-organize their debt - likely trade it for equity again. They still are the dominant market player and have a viable business without the debt load. Lenders don't want to kill the cow: They will find a creative way to keep it supplying them with milk. I worked for a company in a similar situation. Vulture funds usually find a way to keep the tap flowing -- albeit often at the cost of employees and suppliers.
If they sell milk for 6 cents, less photographers will decide to feed the cow. If photographers don't feed the cow it won't give any milk to produce the cheese. Lenders will not get the cheese and Getty will end up with a dead cow in the barns.
https://twitter.com/jonathandklein/status/690559911252471808?lang=en
The way I see this, Getty doesn't care about iStock photographers or Microstock.
They make their money from the archives, entertainment and media licenses. Think of Getty in those terms, not about us.
The business and the finances aren't about chiseling us down to lowest commissions or selling our work as a cheap commodity. That's just a sign of how little they care and how unimportant Microstock is to Getty. They aren't going to recover or go under, based on Microstock or iStock.
-
The way I see this, Getty doesn't care about iStock photographers or Microstock.
They make their money from the archives, entertainment and media licenses. Think of Getty in those terms, not about us.
100%
Getty is a "brand", which they even tried to turn into media, then into "technology company" etc., it didn't work though.
They most probably run IS on autopilot and as an extension of their "brand".
They care more about their "image", red carpets and even Exclusive RM http://www.selling-stock.com/Article/getty-to-push-exclusive-rm (http://www.selling-stock.com/Article/getty-to-push-exclusive-rm) than about Microstock. It seems like they've never been interested in micro at all, nor they care about it now.
They might have been interested in beating SS, but it is not the same as moving IS forward, IS was used as "weapon", nothing else. As well as "exclusives", Yuri Arcurs and others...
In my humble opinion.
-
I've noticed recently that https://photos.com owned by Getty was turned into FineArtAmerica website which costs $30 a year...
It used to be a fully functioning site with photo prints and service and marketing, etc.
If they can't afford to run an online print shop... it looks scary :D
-
Microstock originally existed to help photographers sell there work across the World, using a low priced volume business model. It started as a partnership with the Agencies, the crucial point is, it was a partnership with fair commission rates.
What has happened is the wealthy in the guise of big business, have moved in and subverted this business model suckin g the life out of the suppliers of the content and in the case of Getty mortgaging not only the companies future but the talent that supply that content.
The reality is the wealthy are double winners, as not only do they own the shares in the hedge funds that have owned Getty but they will also own the companies that supplied the loans, it's a win, win for them, paying themselves vast dividends on the backs of the talent that supply Getty.
These people who have perpetrated this on the creative talent in Microstock are the same people that have moved in to most internet based companies, a great many of them were originally set up to facilitate an easier way of working while getting paid a fair commission.
The likes of Amazon and Uber operate similar models, it is all about driving down the rates paid to the supplier and increasing the shareholder dividend.
What is really needed is a law to ban shareholder participation in these companies, this will take some defining, but you could certainly make a start with platform based business like Microstock.
-
Thanks, that was interesting to read.
-
The reality is that digital photography has made it easier and cheaper to produce images therefore creating massive over supply. In addition the web makes international trading and a fully open market possible. That's how capitalism works. The only way to change that is to overthrow the world order. Sure you could maybe Tax the rich a bit more and break up the larger companies and regulate some of the more questionable investment practices. But it wont change the fundamentals.