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Getty Images For Sale; Could Fetch $1.5 Billion

By Rafat Ali - Sun 20 Jan 2008 11:45 PM PST

Getty Images (NYSE: GYI), the world’s biggest supplier of stock pictures and video (and increasingly a digital player) has put itself on the auction block and could fetch more than $1.5 billion, reports NYT, citing sources. Goldman Sachs is the banker and suitors are mostly private equity firms, including Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, Bain Capital and others.

Getty, based in Seattle, was founded in 1995, has grown through a series of acquisitions...it says it has 4 million monthly unique visitors to its website. It has also made four digital media related acquisitions in the last year, including Pump Audio (expansion into stock music), Scoopt, Punchstock, and WireImage (see related links below). It also held talks with Jupitermedia (NSDQ: JUPM) last year for a takeover, but the talks fell through.

Getty and its main rivals Jupitermedia and Corbis have all been hit hard with the rise of low-cost online rivals, called microstock photography. Last August, Getty laid off about 100 employees, or about 5 percent of its full-time staff, its second round of cuts in as many years.