Carlyle Group, the world's second-largest private-equity firm, has agreed to buy photo archive Getty Images from Hellman and Friedman in a deal valued at $3.3 billion.
Carlyle will acquire a controlling stake in the company, while Getty co-founder and chairman Mark Getty and the Getty family will roll "substantially all" of their ownership interests into the transaction, Washington-based Carlyle said today in a statement.
Getty Images's management, including co- founder and chief executive officer Jonathan Klein, will also invest "significant equity" in the company, Carlyle said.
The price is less than the $4 billion that San Francisco- based Hellman and Friedman was seeking, a person familiar with the matter said yesterday.
CVC Capital Partners, which was also bidding, declined to top Carlyle's offer, according to the person, who asked not to be named because the talks were private.
Hellman bought Seattle-based Getty Images, the Number 1 distributor of archived photos, for $2.4 billion four years ago and took out dividends of at least $950 million.
"We will harness Carlyle's financial resources and global network to help take Getty Images to the next stage of product innovation and global growth," Eliot Merrill, a managing director in Carlyle's telecommunications and media group, said in the statement.
Bloomberg
