Heritage Images Partnership has announced that their company CEO and friend Sheldon Marshall passed away on 17 December 2017 during an expedition to Mount Everest; one of his long standing dreams.
Marshall had been active in the stock photo industry for decades. I first came to know Sheldon in the early 1980s when he acquired Colorific in London. Later he put together a collection of agencies that included: Bavaria, Telegraph Colour Library and Pix in Paris in addition to Colorific under the Visual Communications Group (VCG) brand.
VCG became a subsidiary of United News and Media (UNM) in the UK and in 1997
acquired FPG International in New York. Marshall was appointed President of FPG and David Moffly was named Chief Operating Officer.
In 1999 Marshall was fired as FPG President by Andrew Nugee of UNM because 1998 return-on-investment was poorer than expected. Later that year Marshall put together a group of investors, became President of Globalmedia Ltd. and in 2000 launched the stock agency, GlobalState. Among GlobalState’s early holdings was WestStock.
GlobalState became ImageState and in 2001 acquired a number of rights protected and royalty free image libraries including: International Stock, Adventure Photo & Film, West Stock, Zephyr Images, John Foxx Images and Images Colour Library.
In 2005 Marshall was Executive Chairman of
Heritage Partners London, which acquired a controlling interest in Content Mine International AG.
In 2006 the four separate companies of the Imagestate Group were closed and Heritage Image Partners purchased the remaining holdings of
Imagestate (Europe). The agreement transferred debts of approximately £438,000 of Imagestate receivables to Heritage Partners.
In 2012 Imagestate Media Ltd. and
Imagestate Media Partners Ltd. ceased trading through its website and as of February 1, 2012 entered Administration. The assets of the above companies were acquired by an unnamed investor. The ongoing business of Imagestate was managed by
Impact Photos. Heritage Images continued to operate separately.
Marshall will be missed greatly by all who knew him but will never be forgotten.
The funeral details are yet to be released.