Kerry businessman Jerry Kennelly, who built his Stockbyte photographic image company from scratch to become the third-largest player in the world market in less than a decade, said last night it was the "right time to go".
Kennelly concluded a $135 million (€110 million) deal to sell his two related companies to Getty Images yesterday, just a month short of its 10th birthday.
Stockbyte, and its subsidiary company Stockdisc, provides photographs to publications, advertisers, websites and other users around the world on the basis of an unlimited, royalty-free licence in return for a once-off payment. It estimates it now has a 10 per cent share of a €500 million market.
Speaking after the deal was announced yesterday, Mr Kennelly said that he believed that it needed new ownership to take it to the next stage of development.
"It was the right time to exit," he said. "There are a lot of dynamics that are changing this business. For example, there's a growing demand for colour images that can be downloaded to mobile phones." Getty will absorb the Irish business, leaving the group's 28 workers with a choice between moving to one of Getty's worldwide locations or losing their jobs.
In that respect, Mr Kennelly said yesterday was a "bittersweet day". However, he said there was a strong culture of entrepreneurship in the company and he expected many staff would create their own businesses in Tralee.
"We have proved location is not an issue when staff are smart, intelligent and tenacious," he said. "They are a very talented group of people. All of their stock has risen today," he added.
Mr Kennelly and his wife Johanna yesterday announced that they had set aside €5 million from their own resources, net of tax, as a fund for the workers. This means staff will receive an average of €175,000 each, tax free.
Seattle-based Getty Images announced the deal at lunchtime yesterday. The price values Stockbyte and Stockdisc at more than twice their €50 million turnover.
Commenting on the deal, Getty spokeswoman Alison Crombie said that projected demand justified the price. "We can see that the demand for imagery is something that's going to continue to grow," she said. "Our customers are using a lot more imagery to communicate."
Ms Crombie added that a key feature of Stockbyte was the quality of its content. Its library holds 85,000 images. "The content is amazing, it's very very strong," she said.
Getty Images chairman Mark Getty, grandson of the first JP, founded the company with businessman Jonathan Klein, who is now its chief executive. The company is based in Seattle, Washington.
Mr Kennelly's family are no strangers to business either. In 1974, his parents Padraig and Joan founded Kerry's Eye newspaper in their native Tralee. By the age of 10, Mr Kennelly was helping his father on news assignments and had developed a keen interest in photography. But he was also involved in sales and delivery, advertising and debt collection as well as in writing articles.
As an adult he set up his own freelance press photography business, moved into pre-press work and from there spotted a gap in the market that led him to set up Stockbyte in 1996.
Its images have appeared on the covers of magazines like Time and Newsweek, as well as on billboards in the world's biggest cities. "We started off here with photographs taken locally and in Spain," he said. "Our images were very high quality and it grew from there. It's been phenomenal." Asked yesterday about his immediate plans, he said he wanted to start another business in his home town and was "certainly not retiring to Portugal".
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