While Some Employees Have To Face The Music, Getty Images Has $300 Million In Cash For Acquisitions

... and Wall Street will be happy about layoffs, no doubt. From the other side of the street, Robert MacMillan/Reuters reports today on the Reuters Media Summit in NYC, Nov. 27 - Dec. 01, in "More media companies look ripe for buyouts":

Newspapers and radio networks have been top candidates for buyouts this year as they cope with upheaval in their industries, and speculation is growing that other media sectors will not escape similar scrutiny.

Companies that run TV networks, film studios, music labels and photography agencies are ripe for going private or sales to other media groups, experts and executives told the Reuters Media Summit in New York this week.

"It's hard for me to imagine there hasn't been a sector in this space that hasn't either been looked at or will be looked at," said David Sanderson, head of the global media practice at Bain & Co.

Several factors are driving the speculation. On one level, changes in the way people get their news and entertainment are buffeting traditional media businesses. Upstarts like YouTube and MySpace are forcing the old guard to seek out ways to remain relevant to the young and tech-savvy.

"I've heard so many executives of the companies I cover say 'I'm going to buy the next YouTube,'" said Merrill Lynch analyst Jessica Reif Cohen. "I think there's going to be massive experimentation, and I think it's going to be a very, very, very active deal market." [...]

In the professional photography business, Jonathan Klein, co-founder of Getty Images Inc., saw further consolidation. "We have $300 million in cash," Klein said. "I have found no better way to get a return on our cash, especially in a low-interest rate environment, than in acquiring businesses."

Just as a rough comparison and to get a projection, take into account the amount of money of the market capitalization of one of the other publicly traded company, Jupitermedia (not only Jupiterimages), on Google or Yahoo Finance.

 

Related:

• Thomas Hawk Throwing Questions At Jonathan Klein: "We´re Interested In The User Generated Photography From A Consumer Perspective" (Oct. 26, 2006)
• Jonathan Klein: "The Continuous Re-invention of Getty Images" (Oct. 26, 2006)
• Getty Images Q3/2006 Numbers Revisited (Oct. 25, 2006)
• Wall Street And Media On Getty´s Third Quarter Earnings, Part II (Oct. 25, 2006)
• Snippets From Getty`s Conference Call: More On The New Creative Workflow Model Called "Open", Photographers Contracted To Individual Brands, and Wholly-Owned Imagery (Oct. 25, 2006)
• Wall Street And Media On Getty´s Third Quarter Earnings (Oct. 25, 2006)