Getty Images, the stock-photo giant with a presence in Seattle dating back to the dot-com era, plans to keep its headquarters in the city and avoid layoffs as it heads into a prearranged bankruptcy intended to cut its debt and take the company private.
A Getty spokesperson confirmed the plans in an email to GeekWire, citing “no expected impact on employees.” The company has about 300 employees in Seattle, out of nearly 1,650 worldwide as of the end of last year.
Getty is best known for its news, sports and entertainment photography. Its operations were profitable last year, with $84 million in operating income on $981 million in revenue, but it posted a $206 million net loss after interest and other costs.
The company has been weighed down for years by debt, now totaling nearly $1.5 billion, much of it going back to its years under private equity ownership starting in 2008. It returned to the public markets in 2022 through a SPAC deal that valued it at $4.8 billion.
A failed $3.7 billion merger with rival Shutterstock, announced in January 2025, deepened its financial crisis, as Getty spent more than $100 million on fees and financing. Getty abandoned the deal this summer after U.K. regulators required Shutterstock to sell its editorial business as a condition of closing, which Getty viewed as a deal-breaker.
Getty’s creative stock-photo business has shown signs of vulnerability, with revenue down 2.6% in Q2, as it competes with AI-generated images and the boom in smartphone photography.
Under the restructuring, members of the Getty family and affiliates of Koch Equity Development will invest up to $533 million and own the company together, Getty announced Monday. Koch Equity Development, the investment arm of Koch Inc., has been a minority investor in Getty since 2018, the spokesperson said. It owned 27.5% of Getty’s shares as of April, according to a regulatory filing.
The deal will “enable us to accelerate investment into the business and better position Getty Images for long-term success,” Getty CEO Craig Peters said in the announcement.
Getty plans to file for Chapter 11 in the coming weeks, aiming to emerge by year-end.
Bondholders agreed to retire $270 million in unsecured debt, and most secured lenders agreed to reduce interest payments and push out repayment. Public shareholders are expected to be wiped out. The NYSE suspended trading in the stock Sept. 29, after shares fell to 12 cents.
Mark Getty and Jonathan Klein co-founded the company in London in 1995. In 1998, Getty acquired Seattle-based stock-photo company PhotoDisc, and it moved its HQ to Seattle in 1999.
In 2016, Getty became the distributor of images from Corbis, its longtime Seattle-based rival, after Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates sold Corbis to China’s Visual China Group.
Getty’s current offices are in the Union Station complex near Lumen Field.