Floated on the market in the summer of 2022 via an SPAC - just days before the speculative bubble surrounding these dubious investment vehicles deflated! - Getty remains 40% controlled by Koch Industries and the firm Neuberger Berman, each with a fifth of the capital.

At the time, the company was valued by its sponsors at $10 per share. This meant an enterprise value of $4.8 billion, including net debt, which represented a multiple of 15 times the operating profit before depreciation and amortization, or EBITDA. However, the share price jumped to $30 per share at the time of the IPO, before falling back to a low of $5 per share last October - a level from which it has not recovered since.

The annual results, just published, allow us to take stock of the situation. In terms of strategy, it is no surprise that the ambition remains to penetrate the video and NFT markets. In addition to organic developments, this will necessarily involve small external growth operations.

In this game, Getty is at a disadvantage: Shutterstock generates more cash and has no debts, while Adobe Stock is backed by a group whose scale and resources are not comparable.Note that Shutterstock, also publicly traded, has had a spectacular growth trajectory, with revenues increasing fivefold in ten years - though its ability to turn a profit has slipped a bit.

Less well capitalized, Getty will have to be innovative and inventive. It's not a sure thing, even though the business has solid qualities: 450,000 regular contributors, as many new clients per year, good growth potential among corporate clients, and two-thirds of revenues from content exclusive to the platform.

Getty deploys an intelligent staircase customer acquisition strategy: Getty Images provides the high-end service, iStock the "budget" offer, and Unsplash the free content, with of course many incentives to redirect to the two paying platforms.

Financially, the history is limited since the company was private until last year. Over the last three fiscal years, i.e. between 2020 and 2022, Getty generates an average revenue of $900 million and an average cash profit - or "free cash flow" - of $115 million per year.

(Free cash flow is a more reliable measure of earnings power here, as net income is impacted by significant non-cash items, such as the revaluation of warrants in the last fiscal year).

At $5 per share, or $3.5 billion in enterprise value, Getty is trading at x30 earnings, as well as between x10 and x12 EBITDA, a much more rational valuation than the price levels of the past.

On a positive note, we note the absence of crazy stock option plans.