Universal Images Group (UIG), owned by industry veteran George Sinclair (also the founder of the Virtual Picture Desk in 2002 and co-author of Britannica’s Image Quest), has acquired the business rights and digital library of the
MyLoupe and the
Ad Stock Images picture agencies.
MyLoupe, based in Chicago, was founded in 2003 2003 and has been a successful picture agency representing almost 600 international photographers. With over 250,000 fully digitized rights managed and royalty free images the MyLoupe collection consists of travel, Americana, business, lifestyle, the environment, nature, agriculture and education imagery.
Ad Stock Images, based in Salt Lake City (formerly known as The Stock Solution and founded in 1978), has over 300 contributing photographers and over 77,000 rights managed and royalty free images. Ad Stock Images specializes in content featuring healthcare, business & industry, religion, travel, culture and nature.
Since both MyLoupe and Ad Stock Images primarily only served the United States domestic market, the photographers will now benefit from UIG’s established global and international distribution network, as well as its online education and merchandizing channels in the USA and the UK. UIG is the exclusive provider of educational images for Britannica’s Image Quest services for schools, colleges, universities and public libraries.
“ We are very excited about these acquisitions as it will allow us to increase our rights managed premium database of picture content for international distribution by over 250,000 images immediately and allow us to edit new content for the online education market ” stated George Sinclair , Chief Executive Officer of the Universal Images Group, “This compliments the acquisition of Omni Photo in 2011 and will allow us to continue to represent new and fresh imagery from the photographers for the ever growing market and demand for editorial and educational content”
“This is a win/win scenario for everyone. Our photographers should earn more from getting their work in front of a larger world market. UIG will get a nice boost in content and contributor base. I look forward to being able to more fully focus my attention on MyLoupe Web Division, the web design and development side of our business” commented Brian Heston, President of MyLoupe Inc.
“I think this is a wonderful opportunity for contributors to be part of a much wider global image distribution model as well as being able to take advantage of UIG’s unique position as exclusive educational image provider for Encyclopedia Britannica's Image Quest services” says Ad Stock Images’ Owner, Douglas Pulsipher. “This additional exposure will certainly create expanded opportunities for image sales.”
UIG has an extensive network of international agents who are specialists in different categories of content representing art, history, portraiture, culture, travel, science, medicine, nature, natural history, botany, and the environment, as well diverse amd ethnographic images. UIG is a major provider of imagery to Getty Images for their creative, publishing and editorial markets. UIG now has content management facilities (under the Virtual Picture Desk (VPD) name) both in New York and in the UK for the sourcing, editing, key wording and cataloging of content for its distribution business. VPD also undertakes similar services for De Agostini, Mondadori, Leemage, PYMCA and the Chicago History Museum and previously for Discovery Channel’s picture library.