Koch, Getty Families Team Up to Take Getty Images Private in Bankruptcy Deal

(Bloomberg) -- Getty Images Holdings Inc. will get an equity injection from existing shareholders as part of a prepackaged bankruptcy to restructure and take private the photo archive and stock-image company.

Members of the Getty family and Koch Equity Development, the investment arm of Koch Industries, Inc. will provide up to $433 million of new equity as part of the agreement, the company said in its restructuring support agreement disclosed on Monday.

As part of that amount, KED committed about $143 million in debtor-in-possession financing to fund the bankruptcy process. About $100 million of debt held by KED and its affiliates will also be converted into equity.

Getty reported $2.1 billion of debt as of June 30, but it redeemed its $628.4 million of 10.5% senior secured notes after its planned planned merger with Shutterstock Inc. fell through in July. As part of the restructuring, the $270 million senior unsecured notes will be retired, while secured creditors have agreed to extend the maturities and lower the interest paid for its holdings through new notes, term loans and revolving credit facility.

The company had entered into a voluntary grace period after it decided not to make interest payments on its unsecured notes due in Sept. 1 despite having the cash to pay in order to negotiate the restructuring. Bloomberg previously reported the Getty family's interest in injecting equity as part of the negotiations.

The company was founded in 1995 by Mark Getty, an heir to the Getty Oil fortune, and South African businessman Jonathan Klein. Through a series of acquisitions and partnerships it came to control some of the most iconic photographic images of all time. The business has changed ownership several times, however, and has struggled under its high debt load and a shift of customers using AI-generated images instead of stock photos.

With assistance from Christopher Palmeri.