Shutterstock cancels its November 5 call and reinstates founder Jon Oringer as Getty files Chapter 11

On October 28, 2026 Shutterstock▲+1.69% — Shutterstock, up 1.69 percent today put Jon Oringer, the founder who ran the company from 2003 to 2020, back in the chief executive seat, and named Hichame Assi, who leads its Envato marketplace unit, president and chief operating officer ¹. The same release canceled the November 5 earnings call↗: the company "continues to evaluate its strategic direction and priorities," though it will still file third-quarter results ¹.

SSTK, Shutterstock's New York Stock Exchange ticker, closed October 29 down about 77 percent for the year, then added 3.7 percent to $4.50 after hours ². The return is the third leadership arrangement in under four months ¹³: Paul Hennessy resigned as chief executive on July 13↗, weeks after the Getty merger died, and finance chief Rik Powell held the seat as interim while the board said it plans to engage an adviser to help plan the way forward ³.

A stock repriced by a dead merger

The repricing began on June 30, when Getty terminated the $3.7 billion merger↗, announced in January 2025 with $150 million to $200 million of promised cost synergies, rather than sell Shutterstock's editorial arm as the UK Competition and Markets Authority demanded; SSTK fell about 29 percent to $9.95 that evening ⁴⁵. Operations explain the review: revenue has fallen year over year for three straight quarters, and the June quarter booked a $155.9 million net loss on $221.8 million of revenue ²⁶.

The only partner left the table

Getty filed for Chapter 11 in Delaware on October 21↗ and expects to complete the restructuring by year end ⁷. The Getty family and Koch Equity Development, the investment arm of Koch Inc.↗, committed up to $533 million of new equity to own all of the reorganized company, and holders of 83.5 percent of its unsecured bonds agreed to retire $270 million of notes ⁷⁸.

Getty's public shareholders paid first: the New York Stock Exchange suspended the shares in late September↗, they traded at $0.0147 over the counter, and chief executive Craig Peters has said the failed merger cost more than $100 million in fees and financing ⁹. Getty's June quarter showed the squeeze: revenue of $229.1 million, a net loss of $85.8 million, annual subscribers down to about 240,000 from 321,000 ⁹.

What the review can sell

Oringer still owns about a third of the stock ¹⁰, so a sale, a split or a revived combination is effectively his decision to offer. The AI leg is real: a six-year OpenAIPVT$1.18T — OpenAI, private, latest valuation $1.18T training-data contract signed in 2023, plus the data business Shutterstock now sells across "the full model training lifecycle" ¹¹⁰.

Against that, Luke Stillman of the trend advisory firm Madison and Wall judged at the termination that scale would only have helped "stave off competitive pressures for a little while longer" ⁴. The third-quarter filing, which arrives with no call attached, will show how fast the downloads business is shrinking next to the data-licensing line; Getty's expected exit from court by year end will settle who owns the one comparable asset ⁶⁷.