Getty Images plans Chapter 11 and a take-private with up to $533 million from the Getty family and Koch

Getty Images said Monday it has creditor and backer support for a restructuring that would inject up to $533 million from the Getty family and Koch Equity Development, cut debt through a planned Chapter 11 case, and take the visual-content company private.

The restructuring Getty announced

Getty Images Holdings said Monday it has locked in support from its major lenders and equity backers for a restructuring that would cut debt, inject new capital and take the visual-content company private.

Under a Restructuring Support Agreement, affiliates of the Getty family and Koch Equity Development have committed to put in up to $533 million of new equity. Holders of 83.5% of Getty's unsecured bonds agreed to retire $270 million of senior unsecured notes. Holders of about 89% of its secured bonds and term loans, and all of its revolving lenders, agreed to lower interest costs and push out maturities on the secured debt.

When the plan is finished, Getty said, the company would be privately held, with those Getty-family and Koch Equity affiliates owning all of the reorganized equity. The same release warns that under the plan, holders of Getty's common stock would not receive or retain any property on account of those shares — the clearest signal in the announcement that public equity is at risk of being wiped out.

How the company plans to get there

Getty said it will ask creditors to approve a reorganization plan in the coming days and then start a prepackaged Chapter 11 case in the coming weeks. The filing would cover only certain U.S. entities. Management said it expects the restructuring to finish by year-end and to move on an expedited timetable once the cases begin.

Koch Equity will also provide up to $143 million of financing to fund the restructuring, on top of cash from operations. Getty said vendors would be paid in the ordinary course, and that it does not expect the process to disrupt employees, content contributors, partners or customers across its worldwide network. In bankruptcy jargon, that is the company arguing this is a balance-sheet case, not an operating crisis — though court papers, when filed, will have to support that story.

The shares already trade over the counter as GETY. Getty said it will file more detail in an 8-K with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Until that filing and the Chapter 11 docket appear, Monday's press release is the controlling public summary of the economics.

Why this comes after Shutterstock

The announcement lands months after Getty walked away from a planned combination with rival Shutterstock. Reuters put that abandoned deal at about $3.7 billion. Britain's Competition and Markets Authority had said the merger could proceed only if Shutterstock sold its editorial business; on July 7, 2026, the CMA said Getty had terminated the merger agreement rather than complete that sale.

That failure left Getty without the scale deal it had pursued and still carrying the capital structure it is now trying to rewrite. Monday's release frames the new equity and debt relief as a way to strengthen the balance sheet and keep investing in the business — including, Getty says, in permissioned generative-AI tools trained on licensed content. Chairman Mark Getty and Koch Equity's Mike Harris both cast the deal as a continuation of their partnership. CEO Craig Peters said support from the Getty family, Koch Equity and lenders would let the company accelerate investment.

Getty operates through the Getty Images, iStock and Unsplash brands and says it works with more than 600,000 content creators. None of that franchise detail changes the capital-structure point: the RSA is about who owns the company after a court-supervised restructuring, and on what debt terms.

What still has to happen

Nothing in Monday's announcement is a closed take-private or a filed bankruptcy. Getty still has to solicit votes on the plan, open the Chapter 11 cases, win court approval and finish the transactions. Creditors have already committed, Getty said, to vote yes. Public shareholders should treat the equity warning as real until a disclosure statement says otherwise.

The process can still slip. Objecting creditors, regulatory hurdles, trademark or litigation issues flagged in Getty's own risk language, or a longer court timetable could push completion past year-end. The company also said the cases would address non-operating legal liabilities while it keeps operating — another claim that will be tested in the docket, not in a press release.

For readers, the practical near-term checks are simple: watch for the 8-K with RSA exhibits, then for the Chapter 11 petitions and the disclosure statement that will spell out recoveries by class. Until those land, the firm facts are the ones Getty and its backers put on the record Monday — the $533 million equity commitment, the $270 million note retirement, the planned prepack path, and the intention to emerge private under Getty-family and Koch Equity ownership.