Jupitermedia Corporation has announced that its Jupiterimages division has acquired all of the shares of Stock Image S.A.S (www.stockimage.fr) for approximately U.S. $11.1 million in cash. Located in Paris, France, Stock Image is a leading resource for rights-managed images through its Stock Image brand and royalty-free images through its Pixland (www.pixland.fr) brand.
Industry sources expressed surprise at the price because they believe Stock Image's gross annual revenue is probably under $3 million. On the other hand, even if that is true, a significant part of the RM collection is wholly owned which may have given it a higher value.
"With the addition of these high-end French and European styled rights-managed and royalty-free images from Stock Image and Pixland, Jupiterimages has further expanded its diverse range of image offerings. Combined with our recent acquisitions of Agence Images, a leading distributor of rights-managed images in France, PR Direct, a leading distributor of royalty-free images in France, and Goodshoot, a leading resource of royalty-free images located in France,
Jupiterimages is now one of the largest organizations in the important
French image market," stated Alan M. Meckler, Chairman and CEO of
Jupitermedia Corporation. "We are pleased that Michel Rawicki, founder of Stock Image, will continue to provide world-class imagery for Stock Image and Jupiterimages through an ongoing production agreement. We anticipate significant marketing and business synergies between Stock Image and our Jupiterimages division. We expect that this acquisition will be accretive to our earnings and cash flows," added Meckler.
The RM division of Stock Image was accepted as an Image Partner of Getty Images a few months ago and will now become another brand that Getty will dump due to its policy of not representing any company that is wholly owned by Jupitermedia. On the other hand there are rumors that Getty intended to take Stock Images off its site in June anyway because the company has been unable to deliver to Getty all the releases and liability insurance rider that were required under the Getty Images contract.