Manhattan-based stock footage marketplace Shutterstock announced Thursday that it has acquired British photo service Rex Features for $33 million and snapped up PremiumBeat, a Montreal-based provider of music and sound effects for creative projects, for $42 million, the New York Business Journal said.
With the Rex deal, Shutterstock enters news and editorial photography services for the first time after growing primarily as a source for images for marketing or creative purposes. The deal also puts Shutterstock in more direct competition with Getty Images, which attempted to acquire Rex in 2010 before U.K. antitrust regulators raised concerns, the report said.
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Rex is a 61-year-old service best known for distributing celebrity photos and has 13 million photos in its possession, the Journal said.
“The acquisition of Rex Features marks our substantive entry into editorial imagery — a new market for Shutterstock with significant potential and many opportunities to better serve global media companies, ” said Shutterstock CEO Jon Oringer.
PremiumBeat will augment Shutterstock’s recent foray into music distribution. Headquartered in Montreal with an office in Dallas, PremiumBeat works with composers to build a library of music primarily licensed by advertisers and media agencies, the report said.
While Shutterstock will integrate both companies’ libraries into its own platform to a certain degree, the company will be somewhat hands off. PremiumBeat chief Francois Arbour will stay on his role, according to the companies, and Rex Features will operate under its own brand and management as well, according to the Financial Times.
Shares of Shutterstock were down 0.84 percent to $58.09 around 10:15 a.m., the Journal said.
Read an earlier version of this story: Shutterstock Acquires Rex Features
