Getty Images - Down For The Count

When we last discussed Getty Images (NYSE: GYI) we were predicting lots of "oh, we can't discuss that" responses when the notion of a sale was brought up. True to form, JDK said just about that, when asked by the analysts, and it was a nice distraction from the otherwise mediocre-at-best news out of their Q4 call. Had there not been this false excitement created over "strategic alternatives", the stock might well have continued to be pummeled to new lows, every day.

Now, with the NYT reporting that (surprise, surprise) Getty didn't get any viable offers at their otherwise inflated market cap of $1.6B, now today, they plummet by $2.45 in one day, almost a 10% drop. You can expect more blood-letting tomorrow. Daryl Lang, over at PDN, penned a nice piece - Report: Getty Images Unlikely To Be Sold , that sums things up pretty well.

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What part of "our core stock photography business has stopped growing, in fact, it's declining" don't people get when he says something like that? (Jonathan Klein, as reported here on 9/20/07, from the Goldman Sachs 2007 Communacopia Conference). Someone needs to send his actuaries back to remedial Accounting 101 to properly value devalue the company to it's proper worth.

I will repeat what I've said before - look to a sub-$20/share figure to be the catalyst for calls for JDK to make his departure. The writing is on the wall, sub-$20 or not, that his time is over, and they just need to find a graceful way for him to exit. Nice that GYI moved him to NYC to attend the social circuit and talk up his company for a possible sale, but now that that's over and done with, he can check off "live in the upper Northwest" from his life plan, and remain in NYC looking for his next paycheck. No doubt, he'll have enough bonuses from his stellar performance at the helm of GYI to pay his bills on the backs of an industry his decisions and ideas devastated, that he won't need an immediate new job until the memory of the creative ruin he's left in his wake has become one sad, distant memory.


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Note: I have not in the past, do not now, not do I have any plans to hold or otherwise invest in GYI.

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