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Apollo Global Management LLC (AGM), an American private equity firm, has agreed to acquire online photo hosting and printing platforms Shutterfly and Snapfish in a multi-billion dollar deal.
According to a report from Reuters, AGM is shelling out $ 2.7 billion for Shutterfly, which includes approximately $ 900 million in debt, some of which is likely to be from Shutterfly’s $ 825 million acquisition of school and family portrait franchise Lifetouch last year. The report further specifies Apollo is paying ‘$ 51 per share in cash for Shutterfly, a 13% premium to the company’s value on Feb. 5, the last trading day before it announced it would explore a sale.’
No specific financials were given on the acquisition of Snapfish, but Reuters reports Apollo plans on merging the two companies together.
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| A screenshot from Shutterfly’s homepage at the time of writing this article. It shows mugs, photobooks and graduation cards that can be made with the service, in addition to dozens of other trinkets and stationary items. |
Both Shutterfly and Snapfish are online platforms that allow consumers to publish images online and create various objects and stationary with their photographs. In addition to basic editing tools in the browser, both Shutterfly and Snapfish allow images to be printed into books, calendars, cards and more, as well as printed on mugs, glasses, tiles and more.
For the time being, both the Shutterfly and Snapfish websites are up and operating as usual. There doesn’t appear to be a timeline for when the merge will happen or how it will go down.
Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)