Breakingviews: Getty deal is picture-perfect M&A for 2025

Getty Images’ $3.7 billion merger, including debt, with rival stock image seller Shutterstock is a picture-perfect template for more deals. Three big factors – potentially looser competition policing, the rise of artificial intelligence, and the benefits of combining aging tech stragglers – argue in favor of tie-ups. Key, though, is whether investors give buyers a long enough leash to strike acquisitions. Given the warm reception to the Tuesday announcement, which touts hefty savings, the scene is set.

The outgoing administration of President Joe Biden was a nightmare for dealmakers. For four years, trustbusters opposed a host of combinations on novel legal grounds, slow-rolling approvals to boot. While his last term wasn’t quite a laissez-faire free-for-all, if President-elect Donald Trump returns to type, predictability and somewhat looser standards can be expected. That doesn’t eliminate uncertainty, especially for firms Trump views unfavorably, but it’s promising for mergers of head-to-head competitors in narrow markets like serving up snapshots.

And Getty could use a deal. Its stock had fallen 58% over the year to Jan. 2, the day before Bloomberg reported the companies were considering a tie-up. Its EBITDA is expected to come in at around $310 million in 2026, according to Visible Alpha data, roughly zero growth since 2021. It carries roughly four times that much in debt.

That’s a bad position to be in during a time of likely upheaval. The rise of AI has given users the ability to quickly generate their own images with no skill, or photographers, required. There is an opportunity here: data-ravenous intelligence models could raise the value of Getty and Shutterstock’s catalogs, and the buyer touts its own generative AI service. But if cheap, bespoke artificial images satisfy customers, they could destroy demand. It makes sense to team up to bolster the upside.

There are also big savings in combining aging stragglers. Getty says that, together, the two companies can slash up to $200 million annually in costs. It’s paying for Shutterstock in a combination of cash and stock, leaving its investors with a 54.7% stake in the merged firm. That means that the deal’s synergies, taxed at the standard U.S. corporate rate and capitalized, are worth $865 million to them. That’s roughly Getty’s market capitalization prior to deal news breaking.

No wonder the buyer’s stock was up nearly 25% in late morning trading. The stock-image peddler has captured an ideal snapshot of a new wave of dealmaking.