Jupitermedia Buys PictureArts . . .
Stock Asylum Staff Report
July 1, 2005
Yet another distributor of quality stock photography has been absorbed
by a bigger competitor.
Jupitermedia announced that it has entered into a "definitive agreement" to purchase PictureArts Corporation for $63.2 million from owners Jeffrey Burke and Lorraine Triolo, a husband and wife team that started the company in 1984.
PictureArts operates the Brand X, FoodPix, Botanica and Nonstock brands. According to Jupitermedia, Burke will continue to run the PictureArts brands and will become senior vice president of product strategy for JupiterImages, Jupitermedia's stock photo division. Triolo will continue as PictureArts creative director.
In a little over a year, Jupitermedia has amassed an impressive array of stock photography brands, including Comstock, Creatas, PictureQuest, Thinkstock, Goodshoot, AbleStock and Liquidlibrary.
Upon entering this acquisition phase with the purchase of Comstock for $21 million in April of 2004, Jupitermedia founder Alan M. Meckler said his company would focus on the low-priced stock photography, with an emphasis on royalty-free and subscription stock services. JupiterImages was a pioneer in subscription stock photography with its Photos.com brand.
At the time, Meckler also said Jupitermedia wanted to sell only wholly-owned stock photography rather than represent work owned by others.
But, the company's keep-it-simple approach has been altered by more recent purchases, including the February acquisition of the Creatas and Picturequest brands. That move made JupiterImages a sub-distributor for a number of other stock photography brands.
With the acquisition of PictureArts, JupiterImages now represents a number of rights-managed photographers.
In fact, Brand X Pictures is the only entirely royalty-free PictureArts brand. FoodPix, a seller of food and drink images, Botanica, a collection of lifestyle and nature photography, and Nonstock, which distributes unusual and artistic stock photography, all have traditional distributor agreements with a number of rights-managed photographers.
Such agreements share sales revenues with the photographers, who usually get 40 to 50 percent of money collected by their distributors. Sub-distribution agreements can, however, significantly reduce the photographers' cut.
Among numerous smaller stock agency acquisitions, the last 18 months have been highlighted by a21's purchase of Superstock, Veer's acquisition of Solus, Corbis' purchase of zefa and Getty Images' recent purchases of Photonica West and Digital Vision. PictureArts acquired Nonstock in another deal a year ago. The acquisitions leave graphic designers, marketing professionals and advertising agencies with a shrinking pool of stock libraries to choose from.
Jupitermedia will finance the PictureArts acquisition with cash and credit from JPMorgan Chase Bank. The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter of this year, subject to closing conditions and government regulatory approval.
"Combining JupiterImages' already significant wholly-owned digital photo collection and distribution network with PictureArts' image assets unquestionably makes JupiterImages the equal of any competitor in the business of commercial image licensing worldwide," said Meckler.
Jupitermedia can be found at: http://www.jupitermedia.com
Jupiterimages can be found at: http://www.jupiterimages.com
PictureArts
is at: http://www.picturearts.com
