Getty Images scraps $3.7bn Shutterstock merger after UK ruling

Getty has walked away from its $3.7 billion Shutterstock merger after the UK's competition regulator refused to drop its demand for a full editorial-business sale.

Getty Images has abandoned its planned $3.7 billion merger with Shutterstock, ending an 18-month process after the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) insisted that Shutterstock sell off its entire editorial business as a condition of approval.

The UK regulator is enjoying something of a moment on the world stage. Culture secretary Lisa Nandy said on 30 June that the UK government may ask the CMA to examine Paramount's $111 billion bid for Warner Bros. Discovery, a deal Paramount says it still expects to close on schedule. With a new Prime Minister on the way and an already fractious relationship with the White House, the UK government may well decide to duck that one.

The Shutterstock/Getty deal is now dead in the water, though. Getty's board voted unanimously on 30 June to stop pursuing a CMA-supervised sale of that business and to let the merger agreement lapse on 6 July, assuming nothing changes before then, according to a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

Approved by US regulator

The two companies first agreed to a merger of equals in January 2025, aiming to combine the two largest players in stock and editorial imagery, and the deal cleared the US Department of Justice this April. Shutterstock brought a library it put at 450 million photos and videos to the deal, and the combined business, still to be led by Getty CEO Craig Peters, had projected annual cost savings of $150 million to $200 million within three years.

News of the collapse has hit Shutterstock's share price hard. The stock closed down 1.3% at $13.95 on Tuesday, then plunged a further 30% to $9.81 in after-hours trading. Shutterstock shares are down 27% for the year. Getty's haven't been punished as badly as that in the past 24 hours, but but are still down 34% on the year so far

The CMA's independent inquiry group ruled on 15 May that the merger raised no concerns for stock content supplied globally, but that it would reduce competition in the supply of editorial content to UK media outlets. The regulator's inquiry chair, Margot Daly, said the loss of competition between the two businesses "could be strongly felt" by publishers and broadcasters that rely on that content.

Getty and Shutterstock had already tried to head off that objection by divesting parts of the editorial business, but the CMA rejected the reduced offer in May, concluding it would not restore the competition Shutterstock currently provides. It seems that no third party then came forward to tell the regulator otherwise.

Placing bets on AI

The collapse lands days after Getty struck a licensing deal with OpenAI to make its library available through ChatGPT, a reminder of where the company is placing its bets as AI reshapes demand for licensed imagery. And if you’ve used Shutterstock recently, you’ll know all about that, as the Exclude AI generated images checkbox is becoming ever more essential as it floods the zone with poor AI content.