In a court-approved auction in Jacksonville, Fla., on Jan. 16, RGB Ventures bid $2.825 million to become the new owner of the U.S. assets of SuperStock. RGB intends to continue to operate the company, rather than close it down as was the intention of previously announced bidder Masterfile. The sale is free of liens and encumbrances.
RGB Ventures is a consortium of photographers that unites Rubberball, Glow Images, Blend Images and some of Blend’s partners. Lanny Ziering of Blend will become CEO of the new company. RGB intends to continue to employ most of the existing SuperStock staff, and there may also be a few new hires.
As part of the deal, RGB structured its bid to insure that a portion of the $2.825 million would be set aside by the court to pay unsecured creditors—photographers and image partners—a portion of the monies owed. The exact amounts of this portion and the total owed such creditors were unavailable at the time of this writing. In most bankruptcies, secured creditors, such as banks and others who extended collateralized loans, are given priority treatment over others. Old SuperStock owners are now obligated to make some payments to image suppliers.
Ziering said: “We see this purchase as a great opportunity. SuperStock is a great agency with a wonderful image collection, including about 110,000 wholly owned images of vintage, fine art, travel and scenic subject matter. It also has a great staff and great direct sales.”
When asked how RGB could make SuperStock profitable, Ziering pointed out that new owners will not pay interest on a $15.5-million debt, as a21 Group had been doing. In addition, RGB believes it can drastically reduce overhead by moving to smaller offices: SuperStock had paid $50,000 per month for office space. Finally, RGB estimates that taking SuperStock private and eliminating the need to comply with public accounting rules would save over $700,000 annually. As a result, TGB expects SuperStock to become profitable within the first year.
Louis Ingram bought SuperStock Ltd., gaining control of Ingram Publishing for $100,000, and then sold the U.K. domain to RGB Ventures, which will continue to maintain direct sales in the U.K. The ArtSelect portion of the a21 business was sold for $1.625 million.