The chief executive of Getty Images has said his company would have to evaluate whether it was worth continuing its UK operations in the case that British regulators block its £3bn acquisition of Shutterstock.
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has been closely investigating the deal, with concerns that the combined entity of Getty and Shutterstock would control too significant of a slice of the stock image market in the UK.
In October the CMA said it had found “substantial” risk to competition from the proposed deal, causing it to launch an in-depth phase 2 investigation.
Speaking to the Financial Times, Getty Images boss Craig Peters said shutting down the deal would cost tens of millions.
“It’s a really expensive appeal for . . . a very small portion of businesses in the UK,” he said.
Peters went on to warn that “there’s parts of these businesses that probably don’t continue to invest in the UK. There are pieces of this business that potentially exit [and] ultimately investments that aren’t going to be made.”
The Getty CEO said plans to acquire Shutterstock are necessary as AI picture and video generation platforms threaten the entire stock image market.
“This transaction is about taking a Shutterstock business that is in decline in terms of its licensing revenues and being impacted by AI, combining it with Getty and creating scale. We can’t go buy a Google. We can’t go buy an OpenAI. So we need to compete in a different way.”
When it announced its phase 2 investigation last month, the UK competition watchdog said: “The CMA has decided, on the evidence currently available to it, that it is or may be the case that this merger may be expected to result in a substantial lessening of competition within a market or markets in the United Kingdom.”