Gerald Edelman is delighted to announce that its Corporate Finance team has advised the shareholders of Backgrid on the sale to Shutterstock, Inc. (NYSE: SSTK). 

Backgrid is a global premier destination for celebrity news, known for supplying top media organisations with real-time content from the world’s top photographers for more than three decades. Through this acquisition, Shutterstock will expand its archive with an additional 30 million+ images and videos across celebrity, red carpet and live events, and add more than 1,400 contributors to its already industry-leading global photographer network.

Backgrid co-founders Alex Kantif, Dan Taylor, Steven Ginsburg and Scott Cosman commented: 

“We are thrilled to embark on this new journey in the evolution of Shutterstock and Backgrid as it sets us up to expand our business in ways that were previously limited. This acquisition opens up exciting opportunities for growth and innovation for our global network of photographers, customers and our employees, and we look forward to pursuing them together.

On behalf of all of the Backgrid principals, we would like to thank the team at Gerald Edelman for their dedication and hard work throughout this process, which resulted in a fantastic deal. Their meticulous efforts throughout ensured the process ran smoothly and allowed us to focus on managing the business. Additionally, their expertise, negotiation skills and immensely valuable advice ensured that we achieved an incredible outcome – for both the future of the business and the selling shareholders. If you are thinking of selling your business, you need to call the Corporate Finance team at Gerald Edelman immediately!”

Nick Wallis, Partner in Gerald Edelman’s Corporate Finance team, added: 

“We are delighted to have advised on this exciting transaction in the media sector. Although we remain sector agnostic, it‘s great to have more exposure to the thriving media industry. The completion of this deal has demonstrated our team’s ability to structure and negotiate complex transactions with parties spread across different countries and time zones.

We are confident that this transaction will be fruitful for all parties involved and wish every success to the Backgrid principals and to Shutterstock on their next chapter together.”